Taiga Drama is a series of excellent long-form historical dramas launched by NHK TV since the 60s of the last century.
These dramas detail famous historical figures and war scenes in Japanese history.
The scene of samurai dressed in strangely shaped Sengoku armor, wielding oriental swords and spears, and charging in a procession on a high-headed horse can be said to be unforgettable.
The Japanese, who have always been known for their rigor, have brought the spirit of excellence to the extreme in order to completely recreate the war scenes of hundreds of years ago.
Many viewers in front of the TV couldn't help but admire the tall and brave nature of these Japanese samurai.
However, anyone who really knows history and has even seen photographs of Japanese samurai at the end of the shogunate can't help but laugh.
The real Japanese samurai is short in stature and has a fierce face, looking like a demon, but the rare female samurai is charming and amorous, and very stunning.
Image of a Japanese samurai on a television
As a medium, television is the work of the official to publicize the outside world, and naturally broadcasts content that promotes its own superiority.
In the 60s and 70s of the last century, Japan's economy quickly took off and became the first of the "four tigers" in Asia.
The developed economy has also led to the development of other aspects of culture.
The historical Taiga drama is one of the TV shows.
The well-known Toyotomi Hideyoshi, Tokugawa Ieyasu, Takeda Shingen and Oda Nobunaga are all regular guests in Taiga dramas.
In order to capture Kyoto (they called it Kamiroku) and unify Japan, these daimyo (princes) attacked each other and launched a decisive battle between you and me.
These daimyos naturally sat on the maza (bed table) waving a military fan similar to our big pu fan, and the main forces that really wielded swords on the battlefield were samurai in armor and ashikatsu (infantry from the peasant class) with bamboo spears and kasa on their heads.
The samurai were skilled in martial arts, wielding katanas that could cut gold and jade, and rushed into the enemy position on horseback, just as Zhang Yide took the first rank of the general in the million-strong army as if he were probing for something.
Under the interpretation of Japan's advanced shooting technology and handsome guys and beautiful women, these battles that seem to us to be just villagers fighting on a scale look so majestic that they will give people the illusion that they will push Japanese samurai to the altar intentionally or unintentionally.
Even the Americans had a brainstorm in 2003 to shoot a nondescript "The Last Samurai".
But those who know the truth disdain this, because this kind of god-making movement simply does not stand up to scrutiny.
After all, it has only been more than 100 years since the Meiji Restoration, when the camera was invented.
Those Japanese samurai who left precious images in front of the camera are 108,000 miles away from the TV series, and if you don't look carefully, you can't imagine that this is what they really look like.
Japan's inherent samurai class
In the feudal hierarchical society, we in China have divided the ranks of soldiers, peasants, industry and commerce, and then subdivided into three religions and nine streams.
There is a saying that "everything is good only to study high", thousands of families in the world who have a good life will choose to obtain merit through reading and become a member of the state administrative organization to glorify their ancestors.
In a smallholder society, owning your own land is a great blessing and a status symbol.
Those who relied on handicrafts and engaged in commerce were relegated to the lower stratum of society.
These four classes are not static, and individual children can achieve a class leap and change the fate of themselves and future generations with their own diligence and efforts.
But Japan, which is across the sea, is not so flexible.
Since before the Opium War, Japan has been using China as a teacher and suzerainty, sparing no effort to learn Chinese civilization.
From the patriarchal system to literature and architecture, everything was copied as it was, but the imperial examination system was not studied.
First, Japan is small and the sea is mountainous in the north and south, lack of resources, backward agriculture, and in the case of inconvenient transportation, it is easy for the daimyo to divide one side and dominate the king in their own acres and three points, and hire ronin who know martial arts as samurai to defend the territory.
These samurai had different divisions of labor, with the superior samurai advising the daimyo and serving as ministers of culture and martial arts, while the lower samurai guarded the castle and led the soldiers to charge on the battlefield.
Some daimyo also have a very small number of female samurai.
These stunning samurai, also dressed in armor and carrying katanas at their waists, served as the daimyo's personal bodyguards during the day and as daimyo's concubines at the bedside at night.
Second, the ancient Japanese clans were powerful, and in order to fight for power and profit, they often fought wars.
These samurai naturally became the brightest stars.
The highest emperor in ancient Japan is known as a descendant of Amaterasu; Then there are the Daimyo, who are scattered throughout the country, and the daimyo is in charge of a large number of samurai groups, and at the bottom are farmers and merchants who are like grass.
In order to prepare for war, the samurai regularly obtained rice (salary) from the daimyo to live at home, and they were required to be absolutely loyal to their lords, which gave rise to a set of samurai behavioral rules - bushido.
Constrained by bushido, the samurai could not engage in agricultural production and commercial activities, but could only refine martial arts to serve the daimyo.
Long-term martial arts training made them physically strong and their eyes like electricity, and being able to receive salaries from the daimyo made them look down on the peasants who worked in the fields day and night and the merchants who accompanied the smiling faces all day, so most of them developed a grumpy and arrogant attitude.
They carried ancestral treasure knives grinded from precious jade steel, and like the children of the Eight Banners of the Qing Dynasty on the mainland, the fathers and sons guarded the daimyo.
Such a family tradition is not only conducive to the samurai's mastery of the daimyo's living habits, but also conducive to the convenience of teaching martial arts at home.
The height of the samurai
Now we all know that drinking milk, eating meat, exercising regularly helps the growth of the body, and when you get married, you should marry a girl from a distant place as much as possible.
However, in ancient Japan, food crops were very single, only rice, few vegetables, almost no meat, and milk was unheard of.
Such a diet was naturally not conducive to human growth, and the samurai's inheritance system also led to the marriage they could choose to be limited to their own class.
From a genetic point of view, they are the product of consanguineous marriages.
The height of such people is naturally greatly limited, not to mention that when the mainland has developed to sit on a chair and speak, they still maintain the ancient kneeling seat.
This sitting posture requires the hips to be placed on the ankles, the upper body is straight, the hands are regularly placed on the knees, the eyes are not squinted, and it looks very dignified, but it is easy to feel numb in the legs and feet after sitting for a long time, which is completely detrimental to physical development for teenagers.
So much so that when they grow up, they are short, and many of them are even hooped legs.
The famous "monkey" Toyotomi Hideyoshi in history, he was originally an ordinary farmer, because of his flexible mind and good at shooting horses, he coaxed the favor of Oda Nobunaga, and was exceptionally promoted to samurai, after the death of Oda Nobunaga, he united with Tokugawa Ieyasu to get rid of the traitor Mitsuhide Senshi, became a daimyo himself, almost unified Japan, and can be regarded as an unprecedented person who has never come.
However, his height is only 1.2 meters, which is equivalent to the height of a 4-year-old child now.
If the Taiga drama is really copied as it is, it will be very funny.