Bushido

"Japan was ruled by warrior for the better part of a millennium. From the twelfth to the nineteenth century its political history was dominated by the struggle of competing leagues of fighting men. These centuries left a lasting imprint on the country's values and society. Bushi, "fighting men," and samurai, "those who serve," developed a rhetoric with emphases of loyalty and courage and worked out a code that came to be known as "Bushido," the Way of the Warrior."(1)
That was a quote from, Warrior rule in Japan, which when I read this I knew that I had finally found the book that I wanted to use to do my post. Bushido is a code that would not permit compromise or defeat, I apologize that your already covered this Tanner but I was assigned Japan so how can you not talk about the Samurai because they are such a central part of the Japanese history, this code of Bushido was based on honor. Honor to your name and family counted for more than your life if you lived by Bushido. If you failed you were left with only one honorable choice you were to perform, "seppuku".  I do not recommend looking up pictures of this word because what it means is to disembowel yourself. This shows the dedication of the Japanese soldiers to their government. 

The Japanese government for quite a while was controlled by an emperor. The "government in Japan was exercised by a hierarchy of ruling families whose authority, though secured originally by military force, was ultimately rationalized on the basis of lineage and exerted along the lines of kin relationship."(1)


The imperial government even went so far as to trace their lineage to the sun goddess so as to make it so that it would be hard for anyone to legitimize their claims to the government. This made it so that even though the warrior class held alot of power it took them a long time to realize that they had the ability to become the rulers of their own lands. Once they had done this they became the, "gokenin", or vassals who were entrusted with land and followers.

When the mongols attacked the Japan, (history channel video about the attack) the warrior were at this time not fighting against some force that had land that they could seize from the enemy so the battle was paid for by the, "gokenin," who did not like the fact that they were paying for a battle that didn't help them to make more money. The Japanese would have been defeated by the mongols if they wouldn't have been saved by, "divine wind", or Kamikaze which came up and destroyed the mongol ships and decimated their forces. 


After this time the fighting men realized that they had the power and they basically made it so that the position of emperor is like today's modern day England kings and queens because they perform ceremonies but they don't really have any power of the operations of the government. Once they realized this the samurai controlled the government for the next 4 or 5 centuries, while all the time showing that their code of Bushido, which required keeping honor intact continued to be the main staying belief of Japanese culture.