How Did Samurai Influence Japanese Culture

The word samurai roughly translates to english to those who serve. In japan, samurais were like knights who protected wealthy landowners.These wealthy landowners were known as daimyo and were regional lords. Although samurai were servants at first this didn't last long they eventually rose to power in the twelfth century. The samurai quickly took over japanese government and culture in japan with their military style government and were some of the most honorable and important people in japanese history.

High in social class, the samurai ruled japan with a military government from the mid twelfth century to the middle of the nineteenth century. Political power shifted to the heads of clans on large estates from emperors in kyoto during the mid twelfth century. This was a

During a battle samurai would introduce themselves to the other opponent. A Samurai's introduction would consist of them identifying themselves by their names and their ancestors names. Samurai would often list their accomplishments also before entering a battle However, as time went on the samurai invented a new way of identification. Since warfare had advanced Samurai would eventually use sashimono to identify themselves in battle. With fighting becoming more distant samurai used sashimono,a flag identification, to let others know who they were fighting. The most famous and important battle for the samurais took place during the Gempei war. A fight between the taira and minamoto clan that lasted five years was the gempei war. It was probably the most influential battle considering it started the kamakura shogunate. The war ended when Minamoto Yoshitune led his clan to victory against the Taira clan. Clan fighting was a large art of samurai life until the 1600s. This slowly brought the samurai era to an end. When clan fighting was abolished samurais became ored with thing really to