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That a bushi must prefer death to surrender is a principle
observed in thousands of cases, and that his family name must be
carefully guarded against every shadow of reproach is proved by his
habit of prefacing a duel on the battle-field with a recitation of
the titles and deeds of his ancestors. To hold to his purpose in
spite of evil report; to rise superior to poverty and hardship; not
to rest until vengeance is exacted for wrong done to a benefactor or
a relation; never to draw his sword except in deadly earnest--these
are all familiar features of the bushi's practice, though the order
and times of their evolution cannot be precisely traced.

Even more characteristic is the quality called fudoshin, or
immobility of heart. That this existed in practice from an early era
cannot be doubted, but its cultivation by a recognized system of
training dates from the beginning of the thirteenth century, when the
introspective tenet (kwanshin-ho) of the Zen sect of Buddhism taught
believers to divest themselves wholly of passion and emotion and to
educate a mind unmoved by its environment, so that, in the storm and
stress of battle, the bushi remains as calm and as self-possessed as
in the quietude of the council chamber or the sacred stillness of the
cloister. The crown of all his qualities was self-respect. He rated
himself too high to descend to petty quarrels, or to make the
acquisition of rank his purpose, or to have any regard for money.

THE MILITARY ART

As for tactics, individual prowess was the beginning and the end of
all contests, and strategy consisted mainly of deceptions, surprises,
and ambushes. There were, indeed, certain recognized principles
derived from treatises compiled by Sung and 'Ng,* two Chinese
generals of the third century A.D. These laid down that troops for
offensive operations in the field must be twice as numerous as the
enemy; those for investing a fortress should be to the garrison as
ten to one, and those for escalade as five to one. Outflanking
methods were always to be pursued against an adversary holding high
ground, and the aim should be to sever the communications of an army
having a mountain or a river on its rear. When the enemy selected a
position involving victory or death, he was to be held, not attacked,
and when it was possible to surround a foe, one avenue of escape
should always be left to him, since desperate men fight fiercely. In
crossing a river, much space should separate the van from the rear of
the crossing army, and an enemy crossing was not to be attacked until
his forces had become well engaged in the operation. Birds soaring in
alarm should suggest an ambush, and beasts breaking cover, an
approaching attack. There was much spying. A soldier who could win
the trust of the enemy, sojourn in his midst, and create dissensions
in his camp, was called a hero.

*See Captain Calthrop's The Book of War.

Judged by this code of precepts, the old-time soldier of the East
has been denounced by some critics as representing the lowest
type of military ethics. But such a criticism is romantic. The
secret-intelligence department of a twentieth-century army employs
and creates opportunities just as zealously as did the disciples of
Sung and 'Ng. It is not here that the defects in the bushi's ethics
must be sought. The most prominent of those defects was indifference
to the rights of the individual. Bushido taught a vassal to sacrifice
his own interest and his own life on the altar of loyalty, but it did
not teach a ruler to recognize and respect the rights of the ruled.
It taught a wife to efface herself for her husband's sake, but it did
not teach a husband any corresponding obligation towards a wife. In a
word, it expounded the relation of the whole to its parts, but left
unexpounded the relation of the parts to one another.

A correlated fault was excessive reverence for rank and rigid
exclusiveness of class. There was practically no ladder for the
commoner,--the farmer, the artisan, and the merchant--to ascend into
the circle of the samurai. It resulted that, in the thirteenth and
fourteenth centuries, gifted men of the despised grades sought in the
cloister an arena for the exercise of their talents, and thus, while
the bushi received no recruits, the commoners lost their better
elements, and Buddhism became a stage for secular ambition. It can
not be doubted that by closing the door of rank in the face of merit,
bushido checked the development of the nation. Another defect in the
bushido was indifference to intellectual investigation. The schoolmen
of Kyoto, who alone received honour for their moral attainments, were
not investigators but imitators, not scientists but classicists. Had
not Chinese conservatism been imported into Japan and had it not
received the homage of the bushi, independent development of original
Japanese thought and of intellectual investigation might have
distinguished the Yamato race. By a learned Japanese philosopher (Dr.
Inouye Tetsujiro) the ethics of the bushi are charged with
inculcating the principles of private morality only and ignoring
those of public morality.

MILITARY FAMILES AND THEIR RETAINERS

It has been noticed that the disposition of the Central Government
was to leave the provincial nobles severely alone, treating their
feuds and conflicts as wholly private affairs. Thus, these nobles
being cast upon their own resources for the protection of their lives
and properties, retained the services of bushi, arming them well and
drilling them assiduously, to serve as guards in time of peace and as
soldiers in war. One result of this demand for military material was
that the helots of former days were relieved from the badge of
slavery and became hereditary retainers of provincial nobles, nothing
of their old bondage remaining except that their lives were at the
mercy of their masters.

FIEFS AND TERRITORIAL NAMES

As the provincial families grew in numbers and influence they
naturally extended their estates, so that the landed property of a
great sept sometimes stretched over parts, or even the whole, of
several provinces. In these circumstances it became convenient to
distinguish branches of a sept by the names of their respective
localities and thus, in addition to the sept name (uji or sei), there
came into existence a territorial name (myoji or shi). For example,
when the descendants of Minamoto no Yoshiiye acquired great
properties at Nitta and Ashikaga in the provinces of Kotsuke and
Shimotsuke, they took the territorial names of Nitta and Ashikaga,
remaining always Minamoto; and when the descendants of Yoshimitsu,
younger brother of Yoshiiye, acquired estates in the province of Kai,
they began to call themselves Takeda.

It is unnecessary to pursue the subject further than to note that,
while the names of the great septs (uji) were few, the territorial
cognomens were very numerous; and that while the use of myoji (or
shi) was common in the case of the Fujiwara, the Taira, and the
Minamoto septs, the uji alone was employed by the Abe, the Ono, the
Takahashi, the Kusakabe, the Ban, the Hata, and certain others. It
will readily be conceived that although the territorial sections of
the same sept sometimes quarrelled among themselves, the general
practice was that all claiming common descent supported each other in
war. The Minamoto (Gen) bushi recognized as the principal family line
that of Tsunemoto from whom were descended the following illustrious
chiefs:

Minamoto (Gen) no Tsunemoto, commander-in-chief of local Governments
|
Mitsunaka
|
+---------+--------+
| |
Yorimitsu Yorinobu
|
Yoriyoshi
|
Yoshiiye
|
+----------+------------+-----+-----+-----------+-----------+
| | | | | |
Yoshimune Yoshichika Yoshikuni Yoshitada Yoshitoki Yoshitaka
|
Tameyoshi
|
+----------+------------+-----------+
| | | |
Yoshitomo Yoshikata Tametomo Twenty others
| |
| Yoshinaka
| (of Kiso)
|
+----------+---------+-----------+------------+
| | | |
Yoritomo Noriyori Yoshitsune Six others

A similar table for the Taira (Hei) runs thus:

Taira (Hei) no Sadamori (quelled the Masakado revolt).
|
Korehira (of Ise province)
|
-------
|
-------
|
Masamori (governed Ise, Inaba, Sanuki, etc.;
| quelled the rebellion of Minamoto
+----------+ Yoshichika).
| |
Tadamasa Tadamori (served the Emperors Shirakawa,
| Horikawa, and Toba;* subdued the
| pirates of Sanyo-do and Nankai-do)
|
Kiyomori (crushed the Minamoto and temporarily
| established the supremacy of the Taira).
|
Shigemori

In its attitude towards these two families the Court showed
short-sighted shrewdness. It pitted one against the other; If the
Taira showed turbulence, the aid of the Minamoto was enlisted; and
when a Minamoto rebelled, a Taira received a commission to deal with
him. Thus, the Throne purchased peace for a time at the cost of
sowing, between the two great military clans, seeds of discord
destined to shake even the Crown. In the capital the bushi served as
palace guards; in the provinces they were practically independent.
Such was the state of affairs on the eve of a fierce struggle known
in history as the tumult of the Hogen and Heiji eras (1150-1160).

*It is of this noble that history records an incident illustrative of
the superstitions of the eleventh century.