
A timeline of samurai history
The Samurai, also called bushi, were the hereditary military nobility and officer caste of of medieval and early-modern Japan from the late 12th century to the 1870s. The samurai had their origins with the private armies raised by Heian period landowners following the abolition of conscription in 792 AD. Farmers took up arms to protect themselves from the corrupt imperial magistrates sent to govern their lands and collect taxes, leading to the formation of new clans to challenge the traditional aristocracy. During the 10th century, the samurai lord (daimyo) Taira Masakado became the first of the warrior class to rebel against the imperial court, and his Taira clan eventually became overseers of various regions across Japan during the reigns of Emperor Shirakawa and Emperor Toba. The 1180s saw the Genpei War result in the Taira's overthrow by the Minamoto clan, which established the title of shogun in 1192 so that the victorious Minamoto Yoritomo could govern Japan on behalf of the emperor. From then untilt he late 19th century, the samurai class became the political ruling power in Japan, and they were entrusted with the security of the estates during the Kamakura Shogunate. Emphasis was put on training samurai from childhood in using the bow and sword, with young samurai starting their sword training at the age of three. Zen Buddhism spread among the samurai during the 13th century, helping them overcome their fear of death and killing, and eventually shapping a code of values that, during the Edo period, would become formalized as bushido (chivalry). The samurai defended Japan from Mongol invasions during the 1270s and 1280s, but they primarily fought each other. From 1336 to 1392, the Nanboku-cho period saw the emperor and samurai result in the division of Japan into Northern and Southern courts, and, from 1467 to 1568, Japan was embroiled in the Sengoku period as regional military lords fought for control of Japan. In 1568, Oda Nobunaga took control of Kyoto, unifying Japan, and his successor Toyotomi Hideyoshi reunited Japan in 1590 after Nobunaga's death caused renewed fighting. The Sengoku period saw the samurai adopt European-style arquebuses and armor designs while also fighting with the yari (spear), yumi (bow), katana (sword), and tanegashima (matchlock). In 1600, Tokugawa Ieyasu became the last of the "Three Great Unifiers" to rein in the samurai clans and bring Japan under unified rule, defeating Toyotomi loyalists and establishing the Tokugawa Shogunate in Edo (Tokyo) in 1603. The Tokugawa divided Japan into domains ruled by daimyos, thus preserving Japan's feudal system. Following the failed Imjin War with Korea in the 1590s, Japan became an isolationist country in a state of perpetual peace, causing the samurai to be repurposed as bureaucrats and even firefighters. After Japan was opened to Western trade by an American expedition in 1853, the samurai army and the navy were modernized, causing traditionalist samurai to rise up against the "barbarians" and the Shogunate during the Bakumatsu period of the 1860s. The Boshin War of 1868 and the Meiji Restoration saw the end of the shogunate, the restoration of direct imperial rule, and Emperor Meiji's relocation of the imperial capital from Kyoto to Tokyo, and the Western-educated "Meiji oligarchs" oversaw the rapid modernization of Japan. The Meiji government gradually abolished the entire class of samurai and integrated them into the Japanese professional, military, and business classes, resulting in local samurai revolts that culminated in the Satsuma Rebellion of 1877. From the 1870s to 1890s, the samurai lost their privileged position because fo the abolition of feudalism and the modernization of Japan, but the militaristic and honor-bound samurai spirit continued to influence Japan's national ethos at least until World War II, when Japanese militarism was crushed by the Allied Powers after its explosion across East Asia, Southeast Asia, and the Pacific. Japan's yakuza underworld also claims to derive from the samurai, specifically from the machi-yakko who banded together to fight off the kabuki-mono outlaws of the early 17th century.