Japanese Samurai and Bushido

When people think of traditional Japanese culture, they always think of cherry blossoms and Bushido, as if these two things have been fixed as the symbols of Toei. As Honju Nobunaga said: "一しき嶋のやまと心を人問はば朝日ににほふ山ざくら花(若問大和魂什麼?) Cherry blossoms of Mount Asahi).". In 1899, Nitodo Inazō published the book Bushido: The Soul of Japan, which "enshrined Bushido as the soul of Yamato and introduced it to the world as the spirit of the Japanese nation." But I don't think it helps people in other countries to understand Bushido.

The emergence of the "samurai" as a profession or a class dates back to the Heian period. Before the Edo period, the samurai were not a figurative class or profession, but merely a concept of codes of conduct and moral standards. For a considerable period of time after the samurai began to appear as a profession, the status of the samurai was actually very awkward. They emerged as a result of the collapse of the imperial system's centralized power, and the new power, the shogunate, had not yet recruited them. As a result, for a long time, Japanese society was very torn. In my opinion, a considerable part of the reason for Japan's Sengoku period was due to these samurai classes that had nowhere to go. In particular, some low-ranking samurai, the superiority of the samurai made it impossible for them to make a living, which turned into the ronin frequently plundering farmers.

The fierce confrontation between samurai and peasants in this period can be glimpsed through the mouth of Kikuchiyo, who is likely to be a fake samurai in Akira Kurosawa's film "Seven Samurai": "What do you think of peasants as bodhisattvas?" It's a joke, the farmer is the most cunning, want rice not to give rice, want wheat and say no, in fact, they all have, everything, open the floor to see, not underground in the storage room, will find a lot of things, rice, salt, bean wine... Go deep into the valley and look, there are hidden rice paddies. Outwardly loyal but the most able to lie, they will lie no matter what! When fighting a war, go to kill the defeated samurai to grab weapons, listen, the so-called peasants are the most stingy, the most cunning, cowardly, bad-hearted, incompetent, and murderous ghosts. But...... Who made them like this? It's you, it's you samurai, you're all going to die! Burning villages for war, ravaging fields, servitude, abusing women, killing rebels, what do you tell the peasants, what should they do?"

Of course, the chaotic situation of this situation can only be ended by the "ten-man" Toyotomi Hideyoshi, who creatively (in fact, it is not called creativity, obviously has the shadow of Chinese thought) to create the "Four Peoples" system of scholars, farmers, industrialists, and merchants, allowing the samurai to find their place in the social order again. This policy, which favored the rulers in maintaining social stability, was later inherited and perfected by Tokugawa Ieyasu, who paid tribute to the lord of the domain, who in turn gave it to the samurai in the form of a samurai. This problem, which has long been solved in China and has never been a problem, has plagued Japan for a long time in history.

With the advent of the Tokugawa shogunate era, the relatively stable social environment, the conflict between the samurai class and the peasants, and the Japanese society no longer needed the brave and fierce samurai culture, so the "Bushido" culture as a symbol of peace and civilization began to be created. However, as Mr. Liu Wendian said: "Japan has no spontaneous culture, after passing through China, there will be civilization", "Bushido" the core of the deep investigation, in fact, is still Confucianism and Buddhism thought, but the Japanese literati dismantled, reorganized, and processed them beyond recognition. For example, the core classic of "Bushido" culture, Yamaga Suyuki's "Mountain Deer Language Class", traces its roots to Confucianism; Yamamoto Tsuneyoshi and Tashiro Shinki's "Ye Yinwen Shu" "Death Enlightenment" is obviously strongly influenced by Confucianism and Buddhism.

The relationship between the emperor, the shogunate, and the samurai in modern times, especially during the period of the great political service, is very intriguing. The Japanese samurai are somewhat similar to Western knights, and they are also very similar to the "warriors" who have not yet completely differentiated between the wen and the military in the pre-Qin era of China, and the similarity of all three of them lies in the fact that they all agree that "the master of my master is not my master", and the difference between the Samurai of Japan and the knights of the West reflects the difference between collectivist culture and individualistic culture; the difference between Japanese samurai and Chinese soldiers, in my opinion, Japan's "benevolence, righteousness, wisdom and faith" is selective. It was this culture that lacked "benevolence" that ultimately created a bizarre "Bushido" cultural landscape.