THE ROOTS OF WARRIOR IDEALS AND IDEOLOGY IN MEIJI ARMY

Murat KADIOGLU

Murat Kadioglu

Abstract

This paper analyses the use of ideology and the creation of a warrior ideal in the Japanese army following the Meiji Restoration. While it has been a common misconception in popular culture and public imagination that the Japanese warrior culture and ethics continued into the modern era without alteration in many aspects of Japanese life, especially the army, this paper tries to look into the roots of the "modern" warrior culture and ideology that was actually created during the Meiji restoration.

Keywords: Japan, warrior, Samurai, Meiji Restoration, military ideology

Japanese modernization has been the focus of historians as well as sociologists and other academics from the social sciences field since the early 20th century. Many aspects of Japanese modernization in the areas including but not limited to its economy, culture, military and industrial technology, judicial system, social structure, art, architecture, literature etc. Have been the subject of meticulous research for over a century by now. However, there is a common conception that the Japanese ideology and intellectual culture did not change much since the transition from the Tokugawa to Meiji Restoration, and that Japan despite receiving Western technology, still remained as a "closed country" to the western ideologies and thought. However, the fact is that, Japanese ideology druing the modern era was largely influenced by the ideas stemming from Europe, and the military warrior cuts and the connected warrior ideals that were imposed on the soldiers were no exception as this paper will try to demonstrate.

The most commonly used word in Japanese for warrior code today is bushido. The meaning of the word is "the way of the warrior". However, the word itself became popular in Japan after the publication of a book in English language in the United states by a Japanese author with the aim of introducing Japanese culture to the American readers. The book was written by Inazo Nitobe and was published in 1900 under the title of Bushido: The Soul of Japan. This book was later on translated into Japanese and became very popular in Japan becoming one of the classics to be read for understanding the samurai culture and virtues of the past. however, most of the ideals and the concepts in the book were actually Meiji Era inventions and adaptations. The concept of an unchanging warrior etiquette and culture was in this respect, a pure imagination. First of all, the feudal armies of the Edo Period and previous periods were mostly made up of the professional warriors called under different names such as bushi and samurai. These warriors were more like the landed aristocracy of the European medieval armies than the modern armies. While the Japanese armies has for the first time become a national army after the Meiji restoration, it consisted of two types of soldiers at the beginning. At the top were the new officers the majority of whom used to be feudal samurai belonging to the local daimyo armies of various han, below them were the newly recruited soldier the great majority of whom were paesants and merchants who were previously denied any right to even carry weapons, not to mention becoming soldiers, following the unification of Japan and the strict observation of the laws brought by Toyotomi Hideyoshi prohibiting people from changing their class, joining the army, leaving the army if one was already a soldier, and carrying weapons if one was not a soldier. In fact, even the ranks of the soldiers passed from father to son for centuries. In this respect, the social, economic and political background of the premodern and modern Japanese armies were very different from each other. As a result, most of the premodern Japanese warrior ideals did not necessarily appeal to the new soldiers coming from agrarian or merchant family and social backgrounds. In fact, there were differences between the warrior ideals of the different periods in Japanese history, and the unchanging idea of a bushido, or a warrior code is again nothing but an illusion. In order to understand the Meiji Era ideology that stipulated the large peasant and merchant population to behave and think in accordance with the imagined or invented warrior codes of the Edo and more previous periods, we must first briefly have a look at the warrior codes of conduct in the previous eras.

As in most other cultures of the world, Japan was governed by elites coming from military backgrounds from the very early times onwards. Although we do have archeological findings suggesting the dominance of a military class from prehistoric times onwards. However, with the introduction of Confucianism and Confucian ethics from Korea. In fact, the eight samurai virtues are actually the Confucian virtues that are deemed to exist in gentleman. Especially beginning with the Heian Period (794-1185), thanks to the advanced shipping technology brought to China by the Muslim merchants that allowed safer journey on the ocean the interactions between Japan and China accelerated as a result of direct exchanges rather than through Korea. Thus, the Japanese nobility who came from a military aristocracy best represented by the imperial Yamato clan as seen in Kojiki and Nihonshoki began adopting Buddhism and more importantly Confucianism. However, the dissemination of the Chinese culture was initially limited to this military nobility in Heian, and until the inclusion of the local warriors outside of Heian into politics and the usurpation of power by these new military men called "samurai", the concepts deriving from China were limited to the educated nobility of Heian city. Thus, when the samurai warrior class began to emerge in the provinces, their ideological and social backgrounds for legitimacy were profoundly different from the previous Heian nobility despite both groups being from warrior origins. It was the first shogun Minamoto no Yoritomo who established not only the Kamakura Shogunate (1185-1333), but also a warrior code. While the Heian aristocracy had turned into a Chinese style educated elite bureaucrats, these new warriors acted under the leadership of local chieftains and despite adopting many of the Confucian ideas and concepts at their face value, these ideas and concepts were changed in order to accommodate them with the needs of the Samurai class who lived in the provinces. While China had long been a monetary economy and a centralized government, Japan was more like medieval Europe with its fractured government and the lack of a strong monetary economy. Thus, although in theory Japan was governed by the emperor and the central government from Heian, by the time the Kamakura shogunate was established, appointing Minamoto no Yoritomo as the Shogun and giving him authority over the taxation and jurisdiction issues of the provinces was actually merely recognizing the facts. While the emperor and the Heian aristocracy derived their legitimacy from the Shinto myths which claimed that the emperors and the aristocrat families were descendants of gods, the samurai did not have such claims and they derived their authority from their military power and the recognition of their authority in the provinces by the emperor which came as a result of their military power and actual control over the provinces vis-à-vis the nominal control of the central government in the provinces. This equilibrium in which both sides recognized each other's rights and legitimacy was broken after the Kamakura Shogunate fell as a result of the Mongol invasions and a process called gokekijo changed the structure of the warrior class as well. Thus, during the era called Sengoku Jidai or the Warring States it was sheer military power that decided the authority of the provincial rulersand the warrior class code of conduct underwent major changes. One of the major works written by Miyamoto Musashi one of the most renowned warriors of the Sengoku Jidai is The Book of Five Rings. This book is today mainly popular among the practitioners of martial arts both in Japan and abroad. However, the ideas that Musashi mentions in his book reflect the warrior class ideology and code of conduct in this era and is therefore very important for the intellectual history of Japan as well. In his book Musashi states that it is not reasonable to die in vain for the glory of one's name and surviving is more important, he also recommends that one should rely on his own power rather than the divine powers of the Shinto gods, Buddha or other spiritual beings. For him it was not a shame to leave the battlefield in order to survive and he survived three battles on the losing side and did not commit seppuku.

However, these ideas changed profoundly with the unification of Japan by Tokugawa Ieyasu following the battle of Sekigahara in 1600. The Tokugawa shogunate managed to establish a centralized feudal state that lasted for over two and a half centuries until the Meiji restoration of the imperial power and the period called as the Edo Period after the Edo city which was the old name for Tokyo and the capital of the Tokugawa shogunate was essential for the later modernization of Japan in many aspects. Although the battle of Sekigahara was the final decisive battle that determined the establishment of Tokugawa hegemony over the other daimyo, the process of Japanese unification began earlier by the last half of the 16th century. Although a few number of clans had been fighting over land and annexing their neighbors' lands for a long time following the fall of the Ashikaga shogunate, it was Oda Nobunaga who began the unification of Japan in earnest. What Oda Nobunaga used for overcoming his enemies was to use the western firearms that did not need a long period of training to use as well as the peasant soldiers in huge numbers. He also did not allocate the new lands that he conquered among his generals. Thus he did not only conquer lands but began to rule these lands with a centralized governmental system. However, he was killed by one of his generals. But his reforms and conquests were continued by one of his generals, Toyotomi hideyoshi who, despite coming from a humble peasant background, rose rapidly in the serveice of Oda Nobunaga thanks to his talent. After having united Japan to a large extent, Toyotomi Hideyoshi banned the use of weapons by people other than the samurai, he also prohibited merchants and peasants from entering the samurai class although he himself came from a peasant origin. Thus, after a long period of time following the fall of the Kamakura shogunate, for the first time the authority to use force and carry weapons was collected in the hands of the central authority and was taken from non-military people such as peasants and Buddhist monks who used to setup gangs and even armies and not only fought among each other but also challenged the authority of the daimyos and shoguns and Oda Nobunaga had to fight long battles against the Buddhist monasteries, especially the one in Hieizan which he not only captured and burnt down, but also raised to the ground and used its stones for building a castle. After the right to use force and carry weapons was concentrated in the hands of samurai by these two figures, it was time for the central government to put the samurai under control. One of the first decrees that Tokugawa Ieyasu issued after the battle of Sekigahara was the publication of a code of conduct for the samurai and stipulate the laws on a country-wide level that limited the samurai and the daimyo from acting independently on their own. The daimyo were restricted by the shogunate in their actions in their own hans and they were obliged to take residence in Edo and their own han for periods of three years and they had to leave their families in their Edo residences as hostages during their absence. This system not only put the daimyo under firm control, it also created a more centralized and monetary economy since the daimyo proceeded between their own han and Edo city with a large group of retainers as well as merchants who carried local goods with them and sold them on the markets on the way. Thus, the Edo period became one of the most centralized and united periods of premodern Japan. A national consciousness began to apper as a result of the samurai class living together and interacting with samurai from other regions of the country resulting in the creation of a common culture and ideology among the samurai from all over the country. Another famous book about the warrior code wa written by a samurai during the Edo period was Hagakure. The author of the book Tsunetomo had actually never been to a war and he was influence by the neo-confucian movement and its ideas. In this respect his ideas about the duties of a samurai and warrior code were in stark contrast with those of Miyamoto Musashi. For him it was the duty of a samurai to serve his lord even if it meant death, and a samurai should be ready to die rather than to leave the battlefield. The center of a samurai's code of conduct was serving his lord and clan. In this respect Miyamoto Musashi's time was more individualistic and the samurai could switch sides, act more as individuals and rebel against their overlords whereas by the mid-Edo period it was almost impossible for a samurai to switch his allegiance from one daimyo to another, and the only rebellion until the end of the Edo period was the Christian Shimabara revolt which had nothing to the with the lord vassal relations or the Tokugawa hegemony. By the late Edo period however, another change was taking place in terms pf the samurai ideology. The wagaku school which focused on the study of Japanese myths and history reexamined and influenced the thinking of the samurai class deeply. According to this school of thought, the allegiance of the samurai should only belong to the emperor who was the real ruler of Japan y decree of the gods and who was also a descendent of the supreme goddess of the Japanese pantheon, the sun goddess Amaterasu. They claimed that the shoguns including the Tokugawas usurped the power from the emperors and it was the duty of the samurai to serve the emperor. This school of thought was essentially very different from the previous ones. While it contained some of the core ideas of the previous schools such as putting the samurai in a special place as in the Kamakura period, or referencing the divine right of the emperor as in the Heian period before it and creating a mutual recognition and benefit for both groups as Yoritomo designed. But the old Heian aristocracy was not included and the original property rights or right of taxation for the old aristocracy and the imperial family were ignored. The allegiance of a vassal to his lord was seen as divine but this allegiance was not only to the daimyo, but also to the emperor. And in fact, the allegiance to the emperor was deemed as more important than the allegiance to the daimyo or the shogunate. As a result, the young samurai from different clans began to support the idea that the shogun should be overthrown and the emperor should be the sole ruler.

As a result of a combination of some developments such as the sonno joi movement that emerged as a result of the reactions against the western incursions into Japan and the coup d'etats in the richest and strongest hans by the young samurai who were influenced by the wagaku movement a coordinated revolt overthrew the Tokugawa shogunate and emperor Meiji became the head of state.