![]() ![]() Those of 6th rank and below were referred to as “samurai” and dealt with day-to-day affairs. The Taihō Code classified most of the Imperial bureaucrats into 12 ranks, each divided into two sub-ranks, 1st rank being the highest adviser to the emperor. It was called “Gundan-Sei” (ja:軍団制) by later historians and is believed to have been short-lived. This was one of the first attempts by the imperial government to form an organised army modelled after the Chinese system. These soldiers were required to supply their own weapons, and in return were exempted from duties and taxes. ![]() With an understanding of how the population was distributed, Emperor Monmu introduced a law whereby 1 in 3-4 adult males were drafted into the national military. As part of the Taihō Code of 702, and the later Yōrō Code, the population was required to report regularly for the census, a precursor for national conscription. This edict allowed the Japanese aristocracy to adopt the Tang dynasty political structure, bureaucracy, culture, religion, and philosophy. One of the most important was that of the Taika Reform, issued by Prince Naka-no-Ōe (Emperor Tenji) in 646. Historyįollowing the Battle of Hakusukinoe against Tang China and Silla in 663 AD which led to a retreat from Korean affairs, Japan underwent widespread reform. While the samurai numbered less than 10% of then Japan’s population, their teachings can still be found today in both everyday life and in modern Japanese martial arts. The samurai were usually associated with a clan and their lord, and were trained as officers in military tactics and grand strategy. In both countries the terms were nominalised to mean ‘those who serve in close attendance to the nobility’, the Japanese term saburai being the nominal form of the verb.” According to Wilson, an early reference to the word samurai appears in the Kokin Wakashū, the first imperial anthology of poems, completed in the 10th century.īy the end of the 12th century, samurai became almost entirely synonymous with bushi, and the word was closely associated with the middle and upper echelons of the warrior class. According to translator William Scott Wilson: “In Chinese, the character 侍 was originally a verb meaning ‘to wait upon’, ‘accompany persons’ in the upper ranks of society, and this is also true of the original term in Japanese, saburau. In Japanese, they are usually referred to as bushi (武士, ), meaning ‘warrior’, or buke (武家). ![]()
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