Japanese Culture

4 The Advent of a New Age

4 The Advent of a New Age The haniwa figurines of armor-clad warriors and their mounts and the numerous military accoutrements dating from the protohistoric tomb period are plain evidence that the fighting traditions of the Japanese go back to remote antiquity. There is, moreover, the strong likelihood that these traditions were nourished uninterruptedly in the provinces even during the centuries when an elegant and refined cultural life was evolving under continental influence in the central region of Japan. One of the principal steps taken by the court to strengthen its control as a central government following the Great Reform of 645 was the establishment of a military system of militia units in provinces throughout the country. These units, which were under the control of the provincial governors, comprised foot soldiers conscripted from the peasantry and mounted fighters, drawn from locally powerful families, who served as officers. From the beginning, however, the peasant foot soldiers, who, under Chinese influence, used the crossbow as their principal weapon, proved to be unsatisfactory in battle. This was particularly evident during the fighting in the north against the Emishi tribesmen in the late eighth and early ninth centuries (described in Chapter 3). In 792, two years before the move of the capital to Heian and even while expeditions, recruited from the militia units, were still being sent against the Emishi, the court abandoned conscription. Thenceforth it sought to use the locally powerful families to provide mounted fighters, when necessary, to deal with rebellions and other disturbances in the provinces. Although court administration of the provinces in general declined during the early Heian period, its provincial governments continued to be important sources of weapons and supplies for these fighters on horseback, who began to take shape as a distinct warrior class from about the late ninth or early tenth century. The mounted fighter of ancient Japan relied primarily on two weapons, the sword and the bow, of which the latter was by far the more important . We can observe this, for example, in the description of the fighter’s profession as the “way of the bow and horse,” a phrase that continued to 78 The Advent of a New Age be used to describe the “warrior way” even after the bow was supplanted, centuries later, by other weapons as the primary instruments of war. The process by which a provincial warrior class emerged in Japan was complex and differed from region to region; yet one area in particular— the eastern provinces of the Kantò—became its true spawning ground. From earliest times the Kantò had been renowned as the source of the country’s best fighters. Men of the Kantò, which, along with Mutsu province directly to the north, produced the finest horses in Japan, learned riding and the other military skills, including archery, from infancy. The Kantò was still rugged frontier country, with vast tracts of open fields to draw adventuresome settlers, and the records give accounts of feuding there over land and power. From at least the early tenth century , chieftains arose in the Kantò to form fighting bands of locally bred mounted warriors. At first, the members of these bands were almost exclusively related by blood, but with the passage of time the chieftains also incorporated outsiders, whom they embraced in feudal lord-vassal relationships. Increasingly, the bands engaged in struggles, formed leagues, and established hegemonies; and in time great leaders appeared to contend for military control over ever larger territories, up to one or more provinces. Warfare in the Kantò and elsewhere, which by mid-Heian times had become virtually the exclusive pursuit of equestrian fighters, probably seldom involved armies of more than a few hundred and was highly ritualized . When armies clashed, warriors from both sides usually paired off and fought one against one, first with bow and arrow and then, upon moving in closely, with swords. The aim of close combat was to unseat one’s foe, then leap down and kill him with a dirk. As a trophy of battle and as proof for later claims for reward, the victorious warrior typically took his foe’s head. Even though the provincial warriors never lost their awe and admiration for the culture of the imperial court, their fundamental values were the antithesis of those of the Heian courtiers. They were samurai—men who “served”—and they behaved in accordance with an unwritten code that stressed manly arrogance, fighting prowess, unswerving loyalty to one’s overlord, and a truculent...