Photo of a samurai in full armor depicted on a Japanese plate, 1850–75; in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. Retrieved from https://www.britannica.com/topic/Bushido#/media/1/86168/160697
By Sebastian Rosa
Military states are often a subject of keen fascination to those who study historical governments. Governments that are defined by and maintained through their martial strength have distinct characteristics and organizational structures in comparison to more peaceful regimes. Japan’s era of feudal rule under the samurai is one of the most intriguing regimes to analyze, not simply because of how the state operated, but because of how the samurai brought it into being. Historians Richard Mason and J. G. Caiger argued, “The change in the 1180s, which eventually ushered in the rule by the military houses, was brought about neither by fear of foreign aggression nor by a desire to benefit from foreign example, but by a slow shift in the balance of power within Japan.”[1] Indeed, the islands of Japan never faced any type of foreign enemy that would trigger a push for martial rule, instead, this development was gradual and largely accidental, brought upon by a lack of foresight, and a decaying, unorganized regime of aristocrats. Through the Imperial Court’s lack of central organization, disorderly land management, and its failure to counteract the growing influence of the samurai, Japan’s central government not only caused its own downfall but laid the groundwork for the rise of the warrior hegemony that succeeded it.
Starting in the eighth century and lasting into the twelfth century, Japan was ruled by its emperor’s authority. Based on the state institutions of nearby China, the Imperial Court was initially designed to consolidate power squarely in the hands of the emperor and allow him to maintain order and security within his domain.[2] In reality, the title was fairly powerless, and one that only grew weaker as time went on. Real power was held by the aristocrats around him, who were often distant members of his own family, like the infamous Fujiwara Clan.[3] Despite most of the country technically being unified under the Imperial Family, by the time of the Heian Period, central control was wholly ineffective and weak, due to the expanding influence of regional powers.
This era of decentralized, regional control is most evident when examining the growth of the Shōen and the rise of private land ownership. Officially, Japan operated under the ritsu-ryo system, characterized by the allotment of state-owned land to individuals, in exchange for taxation.[4] These allotments (usually rice fields) had multiple classifications for taxation, but despite government backing, the ritsu-ryo system was barely followed, and most lands were solely owned by the aristocrats and their families. Imperial enforcement of taxation was woefully inadequate as plots that were meant to be returned to the government once their owner passed away were instead often inherited by another family member. It was from these circumstances the Shoen came into existence, which were plots of land or estates that were fully free from any type of taxation. Aristocratic families took advantage of a loophole in the Imperial taxation policy by classifying their land holdings as belonging to nearby Buddhist temples or Shinto shrines, which as religious sites were tax-exempt.[5] Aristocrats would “gift” these lands to a temple, but still operate them as if they were their own and assume any profits they made.[6] This strategy allowed the aristocracy to build enormous estates from their Shōen, all of which were entirely financially and administratively independent.[7] However, unbeknownst to the nobles and officials who took advantage of this governmental oversight, they were not only building great fortunes but also building the instrument of their demise.
Though conditions varied between Shōen, almost all followed a similar model of loose governance. The Shōen’s aristocratic owner, known as the Honke, rarely visited their property and did not participate in the Shōen’s daily administration. Instead, their primary responsibility was to ensure the land would remain tax-exempt and in return, they received a share of the profits. Those who actually lived on the Shōen itself were in charge of its operation, usually organized by a rough system of duties known as Shiki, which included the responsibilities of the farmers, the land managers, and the rent collectors responsible for collecting the Honke’s share.[8] Ironically, this practice made it so that the land-owning aristocracy usually held just as little power over their estates as the emperor did over Japan. While the nobles went about with their lives in court, their subjects in the Shōen were running the farms and manors, sharpening their skills, and collecting their own sizable income.
Through the combination of exploiting lax taxation enforcement and loopholes, the aristocracy’s domains grew ever larger, which in turn led to the Honke desiring armed forces to protect their lands. Possibly due to a Shōen’s inherently secretive nature, many estates had poorly defined borders, which left many potentially vulnerable to bandits, pirates, or even other encroaching Shōen. Because of these dangers, the aristocracy concluded that some type of security force was needed to secure their estates from crime and disorder. In 792 C.E, the Imperial Court reorganized the army into bands of locally enlisted forces, mostly recruited from the families of land managers, to protect the provinces and settle disputes.[9] These bands were not any type of specialized warriors, they were local administrators who were now given the task of being local defenders. They were well-trained and effective, and because of their dual responsibilities, these administrators held a shocking amount of tangible power over the land.[10] Yet the aristocrats never envisioned the potential fallout of empowering these administrators; not only were these land managers already the most prominent authority in the eyes of their subjects, but the people would also begin to identify them as their protectors. Through the centuries, these administrator-soldiers grew in strength and took several names, including saburai, which would later evolve into the term samurai.[11] They served in every corner of the emperor’s domain, from the Imperial capital to the wild eastern provinces.[12] It was in the east, furthest away from the emperor’s influence, that the military bands began to truly hone their control over the Shōen, with their leaders rising to a level of prestige in many ways equal to the aristocrats they technically served under.[13]
Finally, the Imperial Court began to take notice of how powerful these saburai were becoming, and members of the Court were not keen on the idea of these low-class warriors trying to muscle themselves into the nobility. In a bid to reassert its authority over the saburai, the Court sanctioned the military leader, Minamoto Yoshiie, a veteran of two wars and a beloved hero to the common people, by denying him control of his own Shōen in 1091 C.E.[14] But this governmental decree was largely ignored, and the people of Minamoto’s desired Shōen still gave their allegiance to him. The workers and inhabitants of the provinces believed it made much more sense to give their loyalty to the ones who held the real power, those who defended and directly administered their homes and farms, than to some far-away bureaucrat who never even set foot on their own land.[15] The Imperial Court’s efforts were not helped by the fact that the soldiers who served under men like Minamoto were deeply loyal to their masters, preferring to die serving them rather than the government itself.[16]
Through its repeated inability to police the saburai, the Imperial Court had lost its hold on the islands. Without the support of the military bands, the Court could not project its power, and without the backing of the peasantry, there were no Shōen. Then, the saburai (now called samurai), began to fight with each other for dominance. In 1159 C.E., the Heiji Disturbance saw fighting break out between the Minamoto Clan and their rivals in the west, the Taira. The conflict was brief and ended with the Taira Clan’s victory. The Taira asserted they now ruled Japan in the name of the emperor.[17] The Minamoto would have their revenge in the Genpei War a few decades later, but this mattered little to the Court. It had lost control over its previous servants and most of their old estates, the age of the aristocracy was gone, and the age of the samurai was born.[18] Uniquely, despite their losses, neither the emperor nor the Imperial Court were abolished. Instead, the samurai not only maintained the Imperial title, but they also swore loyalty to it. This was because the emperor held a significant religious importance to Japan, and so his existence was viewed as vital, and a cause for respect.[19] Still, their power utterly diminished, the nobility would never wield its former power ever again.
The fall of Imperial power was a gradual and unexpected event caused directly by the nobles and aristocrats who ran the central government. Much of the greater bureaucracy knowingly took power away from the central body, and as a result, weakened the state’s cohesion. The aristocracy exploited flaws in the tax system, and in the administration of land, all to build themselves large fortunes and vast estates. Estates, which they could not be bothered to administer themselves, caused the aristocracy to delegate their responsibilities to local leaders. Most devastatingly, they then gave those local administrators the authority and military force to take those estates for themselves. Through their own greed and ignorance, the nobility did not simply lose their state, they gave it away. If the bureaucrats who controlled the state put more focus into governing their private estates, decided to not give away too much power to those under them, or obeyed and upheld the laws they regularly cheated, the Imperial Court may have remained as Japan’s true leadership. Instead, it was the samurai who would become the masters of the islands and remain so for seven hundred years onward.
Endnotes
________________________________________________________________________________
[1] Richard Mason and J. G. Caiger, “Rule by the Military Houses,” A History of Japan: Revised Edition, (North Clarendon: Tuttle Publishing, 1997), 121.
[2] Mason and Caiger, “Military Houses,” 32.
[3] The Fujiwara family was notorious for their attempts to maintain power over the Imperial Court, mainly done by marrying their female members to the emperor and his sons and brothers. The resulting children would be raised by their mother’s family and have loyalty to their maternal uncles and grandfathers, who would advise them once they inherited the Imperial throne. Ivan Morris, “Victory Through Defeat,” The Nobility of Failure: Tragic Heroes in the History of Japan (New York: The Noonday Press, 1975), 69.
[4] John Lu, ed., “Rise of Feudal Institutions,” Japan: A Documentary History (Armonk: M.E. Sharpe, 1997), 81.
[5] Lu, “Feudal Institutions,” 82-83.
[6] Lu, “Feudal Institutions,” 82-83.
[7] Lu, “Feudal Institutions,” 82-83.
[8] Lu, “Feudal Institutions,” 83-84.
[9] Lu, “Feudal Institutions,” 84.
[10] Mason and Caiger, “Military Houses,” 121-122.
[11] Lu, “Federal Institutions,” 84.
[12] Lu, “Federal Institutions,” 84.
[13] Lu, “Federal Institutions,” 84.
[14] Lu, “Federal Institutions,” 84.
[15] Lu, “Federal Institutions,” 84.
[16] Mason and Caiger, “Military Houses,” 123.
[17] By 1159, the Taira and Minamoto clans had risen to become the most powerful of the samurai families. Whereas the Minamoto ran the less developed eastern provinces, the Taira ran the more populous western provinces that were closer to the Imperial capital of Kyoto, where they could watch over the emperor. Morris, The Nobility of Failure, 70-71.
[18] Mason and Caiger, “Military Houses,” 123-124.
[19] The Japanese Emperor, according to the Shinto religion, is the descendant of Amaterasu, goddess of the Sun. As a result, the emperor was regarded as a god, and holds an important position in the Shinto faith and in the national identity of Japan. Morris, The Nobility of Failure, 70.