Samurai Dbq

Throughout the history of Japan from the twelfth century until the nineteenth century, the military was comprised of samurai. The samurai were equivalent to European knights; both warrior classes fought for honor, wealth, and self-interest. The samurai gained status and were well respected in the Japanese society where leaders rose to power through military superiority. Japan had relied on the samurai as their military force for seven centuries, and yet the Meiji leaders, facing the challenge of foreign military threat, decided to abolish the samurai class. That was because the Meiji leaders took over the Tokugawa during a time when Japan was combatting superior foreign military forces, and the Meiji perceived that their current military force

The country’s isolation came to an end in 1825 when there were “reports of landings on Japanese soil by foreign seamen in search of water and fuel” and “all daimyos whose domains bordered on the sea [had] an order to drive away by gunfire any foreign ship approaching the coast…” The hostile attitude of the Japanese was due to the fact that foreign countries were overstepping the boundaries Japan set in the exclusion policy. Additionally, “[t]here was much fear of English warships after the news of the Opium War reached Japan.” The Japanese feared that a similar event would take place on Japanse soil. Therefore, the Tokugawa took military action in order to combat the foreign

In the Tokugawa regime, “the samurai who had a hereditary stipend (karoku) had to maintain the common soldiers under his command in proportion to their stipend. For example, a samurai having a 500 koku hereditary stipend had to maintain institutionally two regular samurai, one armor carrier, one bow carrier, one lance carrier, one box carrier, two horse grooms, one sandal carrier, and two parcel carriers.” Thus, there were only two soldiers out of eleven whose purpose was to fight. The system was highly inefficient, especially when facing forces which consisted entirely of fighting