The Samurai-A Military History

The legendary samurai of old Japan carved a way with their swords through seven centuries of warfare. They rose from humble beginnings as rustic warriors who provided military service to land-owners to become absolute rulers of Japan and left a code of honor that still influences Japan today.

In

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this lavishly illustrated book, Stephen Turnbull, an authority on the samurai, reveals their colorful story. Delving first for the earliest traces of the samurai tradition in mythology and the prehistory of Japan, he examines the evolution of the samurai class from its tenuous provincial beginnings through its centuries of glory and ascendancy, especially the ages of the great Ashikaga and Tokugawa shoguns, to its dissolution in the nineteenth century. Throughout the book Turnbull deals primarily with the history of samurai military conquest, including the bloody clan disputes of the Minamoto and Taira, the Mongol invasions, the Onin War, the last great battles of Sekigahara and the siege of Osaka Caslte. But behind the popular image of a fierce and exotic swasbuckling warrior is a rich and complex tradition which has long remained a mystery to the West. despite their largely rustic origins, the samurai greatly admired the social brillance and classical culture of the Kyoto courteier class and assimulated their refinement to become exemplary patrons of the arts. The longevity and almost unbroken tranquility of their absolute rule over Japan also attests to their success in making the transformation from warriors to bureaucrats. Romanticizing the fighting prowess of their forebears and reflecting upon their new moral and intellectual responsibilities as civil rulers, the samurai created the code of bushido, a guide for conduct that served the Japanese people as a whole. It is impossible to understand contemporary Japanese society without knowledge of the traditions of premodern Japan. These evolved primarily from the samurai. It is this complex value system that Stephen Turnbull so clearly explains to Western readers for the first time.

Based on seven years of intensive researach and firsthand observations of relics and sites in Japan, The Samuraii-A Military History is the most comprehensive and authoritative account of these legendary warriors ever published in the West. Most of the 120 black and white pictures and all but one of the 27 color plates have not been previouslely published outside Japan. All the major samurai battles and campaigns are illustrated with maps and photographs of samurai costumes, equipment, weapons and armor-including several magnificent color reproductions of scrolls and painted screens. Five genealogies of the greatest samurai families appear at the end of the book with a chronology of great shoguns.

Stephen Turnbull was educated at King Edward VI School, Stourbridge, and Downing College, Cambridge, followed by a post-graduate year at Manchester University.

'The sound of the bell of Gionshoja echoes the impermanence of all things. The hue of the flowers of the teak tree declares that they who flourishh must be brought low. Yea, the proud ones are but for a moment, like an evening dream in springtime. The mighty are destroyed at the last, they are as but the dust before the wind.'-from the 'Heike Monogatori,' the greatest chronicle of samurai heroics.

Contents

Foreword
Author's preface
List of Illustrations
Conventional periods of Japanese history
1 Gods and heroes
2 Buddha and bushi
3 The Gempai War
4 The fall of the house of Taira
5 Their finest hour
6 Acts of loyalty
7 The age of the country at war
8 Saints and samurai
9 Tea and muskets
10 Hideyoshi's Korean War
11 The final reckoning
12 Decline and triumph
Appendix 1 Selected genealogies
Appendix 2 Chronological list of Shoguns
Bibliography
Index

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