I think I got a pretty good picture of Japan from the Sengoku period onwards.
But my knowledge is pretty spotty before that. So... can we have an ancient japan thread? Everything about japan up until the warring states, although you can talk about how the warring states period came to happen and how the Samurai became a thing in the first place.
Japanese society, religion, government, art, weapons, philosophy, armor, crafts. All that cool stuff.
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Well you see, Japan used to be full of ONI (Japanese for Demons) who basically roamed Japan killing and raping whoever and whatever it saw. Then powerful Samurai showed up with Katanas and chased them back to the forests and started building the foundation for the entire Eastern Hemisphere.
Million years ago, Japan was inhabited by the aboriginals, ancestors of the Ainu and Ryukyu peoples, then the Yamato (korean colonists) came and murdered and raped the natives and through treachery stole their land
Then later they made up tales of they righteously drove away the oni (rude word for "natives") and created the eternal empire of Nippon (nippon for Japans), but as it's in the nature of koreans to hate other koreans, they soon devolved to endless infighting and civil war
>Million years ago, Japan was inhabited by the aboriginals, ancestors of the Ainu and Ryukyu peoples
Huh, I thought Ryukyu was forged by the same migrations that came came from Korea.
I guess I assumed that the mainland Japanese became dominated by the Yamato tribe, but the southern Islands like Okinawa were left to develop their own cultures related to but distinct from the Yamato, and each other.
Japanese are from Korea, Ainu are possibly from Russia? Where did the Oni come from? Ive met Japanese that refuse they came from Korea.
Also how do they look so unsimilar to Japanese? Koreans that is
Japanese have been inbreeding for 3 thousand years
Koreans have been getting raped by tungusics, chinks and mongols for 3 thousand years
Inbreeding? How much?
people seem to think all of samurai history was the sengoku, samurai date back to the late classcial period of Japan.
During classical people the reigns of government were in the hands of powerful court families, not necessarily the emperor, though sometimes retired emperors.
early on they had a military system based on the Chinese with mass recruiting of peasants.
However once the frontier was conquered the the threat of foreign invasion was minimized this proved to expensive, so the court authorized private forces to fill in the gap. These private individuals with the means to acquire expensive weapons, horses and armor became the bushi class.
Court nobles were supported by tax free estates called shoen, that were often administered by samurai. The court was a place of high art where a women might be ridiculed for wearing a kimono that was a shade to light. However by the late classical period, even before the shogunate, the bushi had acquired so much power that they controlled many of the most important positions at court as well
So what happened to the powerful court families? Did they splinter and evolved into the warlords over time, or did they just simply hang around the emperor, becoming more irrelevant as time went on?
They remained in the Court, like the Emperor himself they saw how their power and wealth was usurped by the now raising Buke (samurai).
The Kuge (court nobles) survived in Kyoto with their power reduced to that of ritual performers till the Meiji restoration when both nobilities, Kuge and Buke were merged in a new nobility ala European style.
Are you implying that Japan hasn't witnessed immense genetic flow from Mainland Asia since 1000BC?
>early on they had a military system based on the Chinese with mass recruiting of peasants.
Wrong.
What the Nips were trying to copy off China was the Fubing military system. Descended structurally from Cao Cao's Tuntian system, it was essentially a system for raising professional soldiers by granting the niggers land-grants. At peace, the soldiers farmed their lands or did training. At war, they donned their arms.
In Japan, it ended up as full blown feudalism, funnily enough,
there was no strict barrier between a court noble and a bushi at those times. The lower strata of the court families became bushi, as it was the clearest path to power offered them. Bushi in term aspired to obtain court rank.
]
However it is not wrong that many of these families stayed close to court. Even during the shogunate the court still controlled many of the functions of government. It was not until after the two courts period that their power eroded tot he point they were merely symbolic
>What the Nips were trying to copy off China was the Fubing military system. Descended structurally from Cao Cao's Tuntian system, it was essentially a system for raising professional soldiers by granting the niggers land-grants. At peace, the soldiers farmed their lands or did training. At war, they donned their arms.
Oh, so like what the Ptolemies and other successor states did.
Looking at one of my books it says that all fee men of age were subject to conscription
It could have been both.
Conscript everyone, but also settle some people to be warriors.
Your god has a hammer. My goddess has a sword and shield.
My understanding is courtiers and warriors competed for officer and administrative positions within the system.
Land Grants for Soldiers is literally a meme in many parts of the world. The Franks, contemporaneous of the Fubing Military System, did the same thing.
Although when the Knight rose in importance, the footsoldiers were left in the wayside. Under the classical Frankish military landgrant system, ALL fighting men got them. Cavalrynigs, being rich and owning a horse, got larger shares than infantrymen, but still.
>sword and shield.
You mean sword, mirror, and Jewel.
en.wikipedia.org
>your god
Doesnt have 8-legged horse, 2 raven watchers and all knowledge m8
So as I understand, this position of 'great King of the Yamato' was an actual king and ruler at first, but as time went on became more of a background character. Until the Meijing restoration made the Tennō into an emperor.
So how did these heavenly rulers lose its power over time? The emperors have always been pretty much the high priest of Shinto, and the descendant of a goddess. So how did they go from being like Pharaohs to being puppets?
...
Not a historical figure. Nihon Shoki is fanfiction.
It's basically a shield-mirror anyway, isn't it?
Either way, , my god could totally beat up your god.
>So how did these heavenly rulers lose its power over time?
Because with Shogunates might makes right. Fujiwaras married emperors, so the emperor would be some Fujiwara's grandson. There were a few times emperors were actual rulers.
>The emperors have always been pretty much the high priest of Shinto
Shinto isn't an organized religion. The Emperor is just a very important divine figure that can offer legitimacy to a regime. In some cases he can use that legitimacy himself, but even with the Meiji revolution, he was really mostly giving legitimacy to some oligarchs in exchange for increased relevance.
Since when did the Japanese Soverign name himself Emperor 天皇 and "Son of Heaven"?
And how come Japan is the only nation that has not overthrown its "god king" yet? Have they never question "Hey, how come our ruler is decendant from the gods, thus our nations is favored by them, but yet bad shit happends." Meanwhile everywhere else on earth, to my knowledge, every god king would eventually be overthrown and replaced by a divine sovereign who got his mandate from a a higher power that even the gods couldn't control.
And how come the Japanese Sovereign is the only one whos legitimacy was absolute, while everywhere else the legitimacy was conditional and the people even had a duty to rise up and depose the ruler who was no longer favored by the unvierse/god?
I guess the exeption being Egypt
Read both of the Professor Munakata manga. They give an approximate picture of how Japan was before warring states through folklore tales but are fictional, though to how large degree I don't know.
>Since when did the Japanese Soverign name himself Emperor 天皇 and "Son of Heaven"?
Since the formalization of the title during the 400s-700s.
It was a major scandal in East Asia.
>Be Japs.
>Adopt Chinese culture.
>Ok what do we call our sovereign in Chinkscript.
>What is the highest Chinese title, nigga.
>"Emperor"
>I guess we can call him that. Throw in "Heavenly" since he is from the gods n shiet.
And Japan did the what was then East Asian Faux Pas of sending this letter "The Emperor of the Rising Sun greets the Emperor of the Middle Kingdom."
Big no no at the time since in East Asia, the title of "Emperor" (皇 or 皇帝) refers to a specific person, sitting on a specific throne, in a specific state. It's like calling the British Prime Minister "President of the United States."
Why did Japan make this mistake? Because the generic Chinese word for Monarchs in general is "Wang" ( 王) meaning "Monarch/King." But to the Chinese, the Emperor 皇帝 is special and above the Wangs of China when the title was first created (or the world, for that matter)
And finally, because o the English Language. Any head of a big fucking state is dumbly called Emperor, fuck local history.
If we become really anal, the Japanese Emperor translates into "Heavenly Sovereign." While the Chinese one translates to "Divine Sovereign."
didn't the Chinese cut off formal diplomatic relations over that?
made me fucking kek
No, they just tutted and corrected Japan.
Just to show how pretty fucking important the East Asian sense of "Emperorhood" was: Vietnam upon liberation in 1000s, declared themselves an Empire, Chinese style, with an Emperor, Chinese style. However in the East Asian geopolitical sphere, he was called King by the Chinese, Koreans, and Japs. When a Vietnamese envoy goes to China, he refers to his Monarch as King. But when he goes to the Cambos and the Cham, he calls them brown niggers and calls his monarch Emperor.
The Japs in turn, had their Emperor (and even Shogun) called King by China, Korea, and Vietnam, since East Asia itself is fuck-confused as to who really ruled fucking Japan.
Koreans were too cucked to declare Chinese style rule. They tried during the Mongol/Manchu rule in China via the Sojunghwa (literally: small China) philosophy that whenever Chinkdom falls to barbarians, Korea goes WE CHINA NOW. and assumes the mantle of being China, complete with Emperor.
Of course, Mongol/Manchu Emperors who actually ruled China had something to say about that, and bonked Korea's head whenever it felt too big.
anyone know anything about the campaigns in Korea? I know Japan had some relationship with one of the three Korean Kingdoms and when it fell a lot of the Korean nobles fled to the Japanese court. I am also pretty sure that the Japanese sent troops over there.
Some people claim the Japanese actually had territory in southern Korea but I'm not sure if that's propaganda
I know there is a mythical Empress Jingū who supposedly conquered Korea in 3 years.