Japanese civilization is considered quite young. Despite the fact that the Japanese islands began to be inhabited more than one millennium ago, the unification of people in the conglomeration of tribes there occurred only in the second century BC. A similarity of statehood appeared here only in the third century AD, when the union of the Yamato tribes was able to subjugate other nationalities and become the largest. Gradually, the power of the Yamato clan became like a royal, and their rulers began to call themselves emperors ("tenno"). Another term, "shogun" (rather, the ruler - the supreme military leader), came into use centuries later.
The ancient origin of the samurai
In Japan, in the 6-7 centuries, the bulk of the population was represented by peasants, there were also slaves and half-citizens of Japanese society, often consisting of Chinese and Koreans. The peasants were taxed quite impressive taxes in the form of food and cash rents, sent to work out and were actually attached to the land. To combat peasant protests, the feudal lords created detachments of specially trained warriors - samurai, and the administrative power in the country belonged to the nobility, which mainly belonged to the same clan as the supreme ruler.
The first shogunate in Japanese history
Japanese shoguns officially appeared in the 11th century AD. On the territory of the Land of the Rising Sun, groups of military feudal lords began to form, among which stood Tyra and Minamoto. They unleashed a civil war of 1180-1185, during which battles took place all over the island of Honshu. On both sides of the front there were hundreds of thousands of military groups, civilians were killed, monasteries were ruined. The winner was the Minamoto clan, whose representative, Yoritomo, appropriated the title "Sei Tai Shogun" in 1192 - which meant "Commander-in-Chief conquering the barbarians." So in the history of Japan appeared shogunate.
It is noteworthy that the civil war in Japan of that period was not actually won by Yoritomo, but by his brother Yoshitsune, who was expelled from the palace due to the suspicion of the ruler. According to some legends, Yoshitsune fled from Japan to the mainland, where he took the name "Genghis Khan", according to others - committed suicide. Also interesting is the legend that the death of Yoritomo after falling from a horse occurred due to the fact that the horse stood on its hind legs when he saw the ghost of Yoshitsune.
The term came from China
If the Japanese ask: "Explain the terms" shogun ", " tasegun ", etc.", then the answers can be quite diverse. The fact is that the concept itself came to Japan from China, where it was distributed in the form of a “tai shogun”, which can be translated as “commander of a large tree”. According to legend, the prominent Chinese commander Hyo-Yi was so modest that when they spoke about his victories in public, he ran away under a large tree so as not to listen to praise addressed to him.
In Japanese chronicles, the word "shogun" with various prefixes is mentioned in the 7-8 centuries of our era, including:
- fukusegun - “deputy commander”;
- taisegun - “great commander” (with two prefixes, job carriers were divided into higher and lower ranks);
- tinteki shogun - this is the commander who conquered the barbarians of the West;
- just a shogun - the winner of the barbarians of the East;
- Tinju Shogun is a reconciler commander.
The title was first to be returned
In those days, the bearer of such a title was simply a high-ranking official who headed the army or its part, or a messenger. The title was given during the military campaign, and then returned to the emperor. The ancient "initiation" ceremony involved the announcement of a normative act on this subject (edict) and the presentation of the ceremonial sword in the imperial palace. Later, the procedure was slightly modified. For example, for elderly representatives it was allowed not to go to the palace in Kyoto for an audience, and in the 14-19 centuries the edict was brought to the shogun "at home". In response, he filled the edict box with golden sand, returned it to the imperial ambassador, and promised to follow the "good example" of ruler Yoritomo Minamoto.
Two-year-old could become a shogun
The rule of the shoguns in Japan lasted from 1192 until the Meiji revolution. During this period, the supreme commander handed over his power by inheritance and combined the highest state posts, while the power of the emperor was, rather, ceremonial-nominal. From the deceased Yoritomo Minamoto, power passed to the regents of his son, the Hojo clan.
After the termination of the Minamoto clan on the male line, the Japanese shoguns, perhaps the only time in history, included in their number a child from the Fujiwara clan, who was appointed to the highest public office of that time at the age of two years.
Kamakur shogunate brings Japan national flag
The first shogunate in Japan had the city of Kamakura as its capital, therefore it was called the Kamakura shogunate. This historical period was characterized by civil strife and the dominance of representatives of the samurai - “service people”, who made up the military feudal estate of the small nobles who guarded and served their “daima”. At the same time, Japan, due to the intervention of natural forces, managed to repel the two invasions of the Mongols (1281 and 1274) and gain the national flag, which, according to legend, was transferred to the shogunate by the Buddhist - Patriarch Nichiren.
Feudal Disagreements
Minamoto Yoritomo, the shogun (photo of the picture depicting him, is presented above), after the end of the war, appointed military governors to each province, which over time accumulated significant military forces and concentrated land holdings in their hands. At the same time, Japan established profitable trade relations with China and Korea, which led to the enrichment of feudal lords in the southeast.
The feudal lords at Kamakura’s headquarters did not like such processes, which led to conflicts and the transfer of power to the Ashikaga clan. Representatives of the latter moved from the ruined Kamakura to Kyoto, closer to the imperial palace, where they spent too much money competing with the splendor of the court nobility. State affairs were in a state of neglect, which led to the activation of military governors in other parts of the country and a new stage of the civil war.
The reign of the shoguns in Japan between 1478 and 1577 was again accompanied by military conflicts between almost all provinces, which brought the empire to the brink of complete collapse in the mid-16th century. However, there was a "daima" - a representative of the elite among the samurai (Nobunaga), who subjugated the center of the country with the capital of Kyoto, defeated large feudal lords and raised a talented general, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, in his ranks.
A peasant could become a shogun
This uneducated, but enterprising and sensible native of a peasant family after the death of representatives of the Nobunaga clan ended the reunification of Japan (in 1588). Thus, the representative of the non-aristocratic class actually received the title of “shogun”. This at first glance blurred the boundaries between the estates, but Hideyoshi himself confirmed by edict all the privileges of the samurai and even carried out a campaign to seize weapons (swords) from the peasantry.
Subsequent Japanese shoguns, but from the Tokugawa clan, ruled Japan for nearly a quarter of a millennium. The fact is that Hideyoshi transferred power to his son, who was a minor and was subject to guardianship. Just from among the guardians, Tokugawa Ieyasu stood out, who by force eliminated the legitimate heir and began to rule, choosing modern Tokyo as the capital.
Samurai were first elite
During the reign of the Tokugawa house, the system of governing the country was streamlined - the emperor was deprived of power, city councils of elders were introduced, society was divided into estates. The dominant position here was occupied by warriors - samurai. In addition, there were peasants, artisans, merchants, wandering artists, pariahs and paupers, who were also allocated in a separate estate. During the reign of Tokugawa itself, the samurai were the elite of society, which constituted a tenth of the population and enjoyed great privileges. However, then such a number of soldiers turned out to be unnecessary, and some of the samurai became ninjas, ronins (hired assassins), while others switched to the trading class or began to teach military science and the Bushido philosophy - the code of samurai. The ronins who had rebelled had to be suppressed by government forces.
