| This study examines the nature and development of the military class in Tokugawa Japan and particularly how it used the trappings of a military profession to justify its rule during peacetime. This military profession was shaped by developments in three areas: legislation, military studies, and military training. Laws issued by the central and local governments defined the Tokugawa samurai and separated them from the civil classes. Through an academic discipline known as 'military studies,' or gungaku, crucial questions concerning the redefinition of the role of the samurai were addressed by writers such as Hojo Ujinaga, Yagyu Munenori, Toyama Nobukage, Yamaga Soko, Daidoji Yuzan, and Ise Teijo. Relying not on Confucianism but rather on Taoist notions of statecraft, Chinese military strategy, and native military traditions, gungaku provided the political and intellectual arguments for the justification of the privileged position of the samurai class and furnished a doctrine which allowed peacetime bureaucrats to see themselves as accomplished warriors. Because the bakufu required samurai to undergo military training in return for the stipends it was paying and yet provided no organized means for obtaining the necessary skills, schools of military training opened in urban areas in the early Tokugawa period to address this need. At these schools, samurai were taught carefully choreographed techniques reflecting peacetime ideals rather than actual combat skills.;Distanced from the realities of warfare, by the late eighteenth century, this profession had been largely rendered impotent by corruption, complacency, and incompetence. Confronted with an ever-growing foreign threat and the clear superiority of Western military technology, by the mid-nineteenth century the need for military reform was undeniable. These reforms were accomplished by two different approaches. The first, taken by the bakufu, integrated Western elements into the established Tokugawa model. The second, taken by Choshu and Satsuma, entailed a more fundamental redefinition of the military. It was this second approach that provided the military might needed to secure leadership of the country. The winning forces continued military reform at the national level after 1868 through the dissolution of the samurai class and the establishment of Japan's modern military. |
