The Ways of the Samurai Read online

  One day, Benkei spotted a graceful lad with a beautiful sword. The youth was seated under a tree on the far side of the bridge, quietly playing the flute. Benkei was disappointed that his 1,000th sword would be so easy to take—like taking candy from a baby. But he wanted to finish his collection.

  “Give me your sword,” demanded Benkei. “Just put it down on the ground and be off.” Much to his surprise, the young man ignored him.

  “Do as I say, or I’ll have to bash in your head,” growled the giant. But the sweet tones of the flute continued.

  Benkei swung his naginata. But to his amazement, he struck the ground beneath the tree. The youth had leaped onto the railing of the bridge, where he balanced calmly.

  Benkei swung again, and again the lad avoided his blow. It was as though he had flown to the opposite railing of the bridge! Faster and faster, harder and harder Benkei swung, only to strike thin air. Soon the giant was exhausted and paused to get his breath. Appearing not the slightest bit tired, the young man whipped a small fan from the folds of his garment. He fanned himself for a moment, as though bored with the fight. Then, with a flick of his wrist, he loosed the fan through the air, striking the giant squarely on the head.

  From that day forth, Benkei called the young man his master. The young man was, of course, Yoshitsune.

  THE GEMPEI WAR

  In 1180, Kiyomori’s three-year-old grandson, Antoku, became emperor—and Taira Kiyomori effectively ruled Japan. He had long since forgotten about the Minamoto heirs he had banished 20 years earlier. So he was very surprised to hear that the Minamoto were planning an uprising against the Taira clan.

  The first strike was a disaster for the Minamoto. Their small force was led by a 74-year-old veteran warrior, Minamoto Yorimasa, and was made up of his loyal retainers and a band of warrior monks. Their plot discovered early, the Minamoto forces found themselves trapped in a town called Uji on the banks of the Uji River, on the road between Kyoto and Nara. Pursued by the Taira and greatly outnumbered, the Minamoto hit upon a plan. They crossed the Uji Bridge, and removed some 60 feet of the wooden planking. At dawn, shrouded in mist, the Taira samurai galloped to the river’s edge and raised their war cry. The Minamoto answered. So the Taira horsemen thundered across the bridge and tumbled through the hole into the swiftly flowing river.

  The sky above the river was soon thick with arrows, and many a brave duel was fought on the broken bridge. But the Minamoto luck did not hold out. Joining hands and lowering their heads against the Minamoto bowmen, the Taira

  The Battle at Uji Bridge

  forces forded the river and attacked. Minamoto Yorimasa, wounded and defeated, composed a farewell poem on the back of his war fan. Then, cutting across his abdomen with his dagger, he committed suicide by seppuku and had his head sunk in the river so no enemy could claim it. For centuries, Yorimasa was remembered as a model of composure and nobility in defeat—a most honorable samurai death.

  The war raged on. The Minamoto forces were decimated, and the Taira appeared to be winning. But Minamoto Yoritomo, now come of age, always escaped. On his deathbed in 1181, Taira Kiyomori commanded his men not to pray for him, but only to bring him the head of Yoritomo and place it on his tomb.

  Yoritomo had made his headquarters at Kamakura. There, he was reunited with his young brother Yoshitsune. Yoritomo’s power grew, and he began to call himself Lord Kamakura. But he soon found he had a rival in his own family. His cousin Minamoto Yoshinaka was making great inroads against the Taira. In 1183, the Taira fled the capital city, retreating to their territory in western Honshu and to the islands of Shikoku and Kyushu. They took with them the imperial regalia—the mirror, the jeweled necklace, and the sword—the child Emperor Antoku, not yet six years old, and most of the royal family. Yoshinaka entered Kyoto in triumph.

  But Yoshinaka was a rough country soldier, and his samurai ravaged Kyoto. In 1184, Yoritomo sent Yoshitsune to conquer their cousin. Yoshinaka had the planking torn up on the Uji Bridge, hoping the trick would work again. But Yoshitsune’s men forded the river upstream and took the capital. Yoshinaka was beheaded.

  With Kyoto secured, the Minamoto wanted to put an end to the Taira clan once and for all. Yoshitsune led many brilliant attacks, crushing Taira strongholds and torching Taira camps. The Taira were powerful and controlled the waters of the Inland Sea. But as their losses mounted, some of the seafaring samurai warlords joined the Minamoto.

  DAN-NO-URA

  In 1185, the Taira gathered all their ships together in a narrow strait between the islands of Kyushu and Honshu, near the village of Dan-no-ura. With their superior experience at sea warfare, learned from generations of fighting pirates, the Taira were confident they would quickly crush the Minamoto ships. They were sure the battle would be so short it would be over before high tide.

  At first, the Taira seemed to be winning. A Taira general fought his way onto Yoshitsune’s boat and came close to capturing the hero. But Yoshitsune made a spectacular leap to an adjoining ship, and the Taira general jumped to his death in the sea. The battle raged on. And. the tide began to rise.

  The Taira ships were trapped between the Minamoto ships and the shore when the tide turned. All at once the Taira were being forced toward the shore. Yoshitsune commanded his men to direct their arrows at the enemy helmsmen rather than at the archers on deck. Soon the Taira ships were floundering in the current, helplessly out of control. The seas ran red with blood. Finally, one of the Taira captains lowered the red Taira flag and sailed off to join the Minamoto. The captain told Yoshitsune which of the Taira ships held the boy emperor and the crown jewels.

  Yoshitsune directed the full force of his warriors against that single ship.

  Tomomori, the Taira warlord, knew that all was lost. He informed the young emperor that suicide was the only honorable answer. The child’s grandmother, the widow of Kiyomori, then took the eight-year-old emperor in her arms, led him in a final prayer, and leapt with him into the churning sea.

  Tragedy followed. Next to jump were other members of the imperial family and many Taira samurai. As one of the royal women was about to jump, an arrow pinned her skirt to the side of the ship and she dropped the casket she was holding onto the deck of the ship. Minamoto warriors rescued the casket. Inside, they found the sacred mirror, one of the imperial regalia. Later, Yoshitsune’s divers recovered the jewel from the bottom of the sea. But the legendary Cloud Cluster Sword was lost forever.

  Last to jump was Tomomori, the Taira general, who put on two suits of heavy armor and followed his men into the churning water.

  As head of the victorious Minamoto clan, Yoritomo became shogun of Japan. But for years, sailors avoided the coast of Dan-no-ura, where ghostly armies were reported to haunt the seas. Tales of the noble Taira, or Heike, are still told to this day. And the spirits of the samurai who were slain at Dan-no-ura are said to live on in the Heike crabs, which bear the imprints of human faces on their shell.

  Yoshitsune was a hero and had shown great loyalty to his brother and his clan. But Yoritomo was a politician, not a general. He was threatened by Yoshitsune’s popularity and strength. His jealousy of his younger brother was so strong that he ordered Yoshitsune killed and had him hunted like an animal.

  Yoshitsune wrote letters to Yoritomo swearing his loyalty and pleading to be forgiven, but to no avail. With his faithful Benkei, he is said to have escaped his brother’s armies and spies, met with ghosts, and had innumerable adventures. But at last he was trapped by the shogun’s armies. While Benkei stood guard, fiercely bearing his naginata, Yoshitsune retired in private to commit suicide. Only when a mounted samurai dared to ride close to the ferocious Benkei did the warriors realize that he, too, was already dead. The giant simply fell over.

  Yoritomo continued to rule alone. But some say he was tormented by guilt over the way he had treated his brother. In 1199, while riding in a procession, he was suddenly thrown from his horse to his death—for no apparent reason. Legend has it he was frightened
to death by the ghost of Yoshitsune.

  Osaka Castle, built in 1583 by Hideyoshi.

  3

  THE HEIGHT OF THE SAMURAI

  THE MONGOL INVASIONS

  One Japanese legend claims that Yoshitsune did not die in 1189 after all, but that he escaped to China where he joined the Mongols, changing his name to Genghis Khan.

  Genghis Khan was one of the greatest conquerors in history. He united the Mongol tribes of China, and at his death he ruled an empire that stretched from Asia to eastern Europe. His grandson, Kublai Khan, tried to invade Japan and nearly succeeded.

  The first Mongol invasion came in 1274. It was a severe trial for the samurai warriors, who found that their enemies had no interest in their traditional ways of warfare. Rather than making an honorable challenge to an equal opponent, the Mongol warriors slaughtered innocent women and children. But the samurai fought bravely, and the Mongols retreated.

  The second Mongol invasion came in 1281. This time, the Mongol fleet was enormous. While the samurai fought off a Mongol onslaught on the beaches, an imperial envoy was sent to pray to the sun goddess for divine help. That night, the skies grew dark and a whirling tornado began to blow. The waves rose high and fell crashing to the sea. The Mongol ships were tossed on the waves like toys. Then, powerful winds drove them onto the rocks, smashing them to splinters. The storm was called the kamikaze, or “divine winds.”

  Six centuries passed before any foreigner dared try to conquer Japan again. But the country remained torn by war from within. The wars became so numerous that the period from 1467 to 1568 is called the Age of War.

  THE AGE OF WAR

  By the mid-1400s, Japan was made up of many small states. Each of these states was ruled by a daimyo, a powerful landowner who controlled his territory from a fortified castle. Serving each daimyo was his personal samurai army, as well as troops of peasants known as ashigaru, meaning “light feet.”

  The daimyo were constantly at war with one another. By the mid-1500s, the emperor had neither power nor money, and the office of shogun had become meaningless. No single daimyo was powerful enough to unite Japan.

  Then, in 1543, Japan was again visited by foreigners. This time it was the Portuguese, who brought something new with them: guns—the first firearms the Japanese had ever seen. The Portuguese had not come to conquer Japan, but to trade. One powerful lord gave his swordsmith a gun to copy. The swordsmith was puzzled. But rather than disappoint his lord, he traded his daughter for a series of lessons in gunsmithery.

  This painting shows long-nosed Portugese monks worshipping at the shrine of their Christian God.

  Soon the Japanese were making guns of their own. One bold samurai, Oda Nobunaga, began his career as a minor warlord. But he was wise enough to recognize the value of firearms in warfare. By the time of his murder in 1583—by bullet wound—he had taken control of most of Japan. (For more see “The Battle of Nagashino: June 29, 1575.”)

  Nobunaga was succeeded by one of his generals, Toyotomi Hideyoshi. Hideyoshi was a small man who is said to have looked like a monkey. But on the battlefield he looked like a god. His magnificent helmet was decorated with a sunburst crest that surrounded his head like the rays of the sun. In only ten years, Hideyoshi managed to unite all of Japan. Before his death, he had become so confident of his abilities as a conqueror, that he invaded Korea—without success. Some say he had been possessed by a fox—a polite way of saying he was crazy. But his power could not be denied.

  In 1586, Hideyoshi finished building Osaka Castle, one of the largest buildings in the world at that time. The walls were decorated with the finest paintings, and entire rooms were filled with silver and gold. All the riches in the world could not buy Hideyoshi his last wish, however. On his deathbed in 1598, he begged his generals to swear their loyalty to his only son and heir, Hideyori. Then, as if he knew that nothing could last forever, Hideyoshi composed a farewell poem:

  Ah! As the dew I fall,

  As the dew I vanish.

  Even Osaka fortress

  Is a dream within a dream.

  Hideyori, the new ruler, was only five years old.

  Soon after Hideyoshi’s death, only half of his followers continued to support young Hideyori. The others joined forces with Hideyoshi’s most trusted general, Tokugawa Ieyasu.

  Ieyasu was brilliant and ambitious. He had fought his first battle as a young samurai of 17. Now an experienced general in his fifties, he was ready to lead Japan. But Ieyasu was, above all, patient. In 1600, he defeated the supporters of Hideyori in the largest battle ever fought between samurai, the Battle of Sekigahara. It was a triumph. But still Ieyasu did not try to remove Hideyori from Osaka Castle. Rather, in 1603, he went to the emperor of Japan and claimed the title of shogun. Then, he set up rule from the city of Edo (now Tokyo).

  As military dictator, Ieyasu had a wall built around the Imperial Palace in Kyoto. Its purpose, he said, was to protect the emperor and the 300 noble families who lived inside. There, among peaceful gardens and great riches, the courtiers could read, write, paint, and study, as if in a dream world. But no one was allowed to leave without the permission of Ieyasu. Thus, no one could effectively conspire against him.

  Tokugawa Ieyasu made many other changes during his reign as shogun. His government was well organized, and his rules were rigid. He effectively halted the manufacture of guns and encouraged a return to the sword as the only weapon of honor. (For more, see “A Return to Traditional Ways.”) He strictly controlled foreign trade, lest any one lord grow too powerful. Under his successors, foreigners were banned from Japan entirely, until trade was finally reopened in 1854.

  Under Ieyasu, social classes were sharply divided. The government decided what each class could wear and how they could behave. Samurai were the ruling class. Beneath them were the farmers, the artisans, and finally the merchants.

  Samurai were not always rich. Their wealth was dependent on the amount of land they controlled. But they were feared and respected.

  Tokugawa Ieyasu

  Only the sons of samurai were permitted to become samurai, and only samurai were allowed to wear two swords. A samurai had the authority to kill or spare anyone beneath him, for any reason. But along with their power came responsibility. A samurai would be harshly punished, even ordered to commit suicide, if disgraced. Ieyasu, who fought in some 80 battles in his lifetime, also encouraged his warriors to appreciate the finer things: poetry, the tea eeremony, the rising of the moon, the perfume of the cherry blossoms. A true samurai was a man of refined tastes.

  In 1614, after ruling for 14 years, Ieyasu was ready to challenge Hideyori. He besieged Osaka Castle in one of the most famous of Japan’s military campaigns, one of the last samurai battles in history. In this too, Ieyasu was successful, and Hideyori, trapped in the golden tower his father had built, committed suicide. Then, Ieyasu had Hideyori’s son and many of his samurai decapitated to avoid any future rebellion.

  Two years after his final victory, at the age of 74, Ieyasu died. A true samurai to the last, he brandished a sword on his deathbed. After his death, he was named a god: Toshogu, the Sun God of the East.

  Ieyasu did not suffer the same misfortune of his predecessor, Hideyoshi. He ensured the peaceful succession of his son—a capable general in his own right—and the Tokugawa family ruled as shoguns for more than 250 years.

  A JAPANESE CASTLE

  Japanese castles were large enough to house the daimyo, his family, and his entire samurai army. They were usually built on a hill, either natural or man-made. The foundations were made of rock and formed steep, jagged walls. These helped to protect the castles from earthquakes, but they were also easy to climb. To prevent attackers from scaling the walls, the war lords built secret holes and trap doors through which boiling water could be poured and chutes through which tons of rock could be dropped. Inside the walls, there was often a moat or additional levels of walls that led to the main castle building—the keep.

  The castle keep wa
s built of wood but was generally safe from fire, because it was so hard to reach. The keep was many stories high, with huge, curving roofs as graceful as bird’s wings, tiled in white or blue. Hidden among the windows and walls were openings for arrows and guns.

  Inside, the Japanese castle was a maze of courtyards, rooms, and passages, cleverly constructed so an invader could be trapped in each section by a complicated system of gates.

  At the center of the fortress were luxurious apartments where the lords lived with their wives and children. Other floors held throne rooms, offices, storerooms, and living quarters for the soldiers and the servants.

  Japanese castles were built to withstand attack. Some were burned, but many others stood until they were destroyed by the bombs of World War II. Today, only a few remain.

  THE SIEGE OF OSAKA CASTLE, 1614

  Besieging a Japanese castle was a long and costly affair. The attacks were usually savage and bloody. Surprise attacks were difficult to engineer, because the castles often had tower lookouts, so warriors had to haul huge scaling ladders to the outer walls or try to tunnel beneath them. Sometimes the best plan was simply to block supplies and starve the enemy out.

  The Siege of Osaka Castle lasted nearly a year. The castle had a five-story keep, three moats, and rivers on three sides. It was defended by 120,000 men loyal to Hideyori, who would have liked nothing better than to display the head of Tokugawa Ieyasu.

  Ieyasu’s first order of business was to capture the castle outposts. Then he built siege towers and ram parts and bombarded the castle for three days, while his miners tried to tunnel beneath the outer towers.