Class Ambiguities in the Retribution Universe and in the 'Real World'
The gaping chasm between warrior, peasant and merchant is not as simple in the real world as it is in Samurai 7. According to the nonfiction work Secrets of the Samurai, the warrior class was born out of the peasant class. Thus, most samurai's distant (and in some cases not-so-distant) ancestors were peasants. And there had been people who crossed class lines, especially prior to the strictly-controlled Tokugawa era.
Nor were real world peasants the weak, whiny pushovers of Kanna who fell to the ground weak-kneed with fear after shooting down a few Nobuseri. I am not convinced that people who have slaughtered cattle will fall on their bottoms moaning and groaning at the emotional trauma of bloodlessly shooting down the mecha who had oppressed them for so long.
Listed below are some of the historical situations which inspired my fanfics.
Contents
Class-crossing in the Retribution universe (and in the 'real world')
Non-samurai as deadly combatants
A peasant woman leading a rebellion?
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Class-crossing in the Retribution universe (and in the 'real world')
I tend to root for the underdog. Somehow, the kind of character who has everything - power, high status, skill, intelligence, wisdom, and love - is just not very interesting to me. So perhaps it is not a coincidence that a good portion of my samurai characters in the Retribution series were not born in the samurai class. Kyuuzou and Mizuho are of peasant birth. Ayame is from the merchant class, Yasue is from the artisan class (though her ancestors were dispossessed samurai) and Shichiroji is from the outcast class.
One common misconception is that peasants were the lowest class in Japanese society. During the Tokugawa, the peasants were actually recognized as the highest commoner class, followed by artisans, then merchants, then outcasts. But members of lower classes often became wealthier than peasants.
Now there are real life precedents for non-samurai becoming samurai. The wikipedia entry on burakumin mentions outcastes occasionally obtaining samurai status. (Burakumin being the term used in English for the descendants of the outcast castes in Japan, an abbreviation of the actual Japanese term) The non-fiction book Secrets of the Samurai also mentioned that the powerful samurai leaders Nobunaga, Hideyoshi and Kato Kiyomasa were originally of peasant stock. According to wikipedia and Everything2.com, Toyotomi Hideyoshi was born a peasant, rose up the ranks of Nobunaga's army to become a samurai lord, went on to unify all Japan and became the de-facto ruler as the emperor's regent. According to wikipedia, Kato Kiyomasa was born a blacksmith and rose in Hideyoshi's service to become a daimyo (military governor of a fief/province).
According to Secrets of the Samurai, foot soldiers (ashigaru) were drawn from the peasant populace. The wikipedia entry on ashigaru states that ashigaru included low-ranking samurai in addition to commoners. At any rate, there was an overlap between the warrior class and the peasant class in the lowest rank of the army. So it was not inconceivable for Mizuho, Ayame and Kyuuzou (all commoners) to enter the Light Infantry as ashigaru. In the Retribution universe, when they reached non-commissioned officer rank they achieved samurai status. As for Mizuho and Ayame being women, wikipedia mentions tales of of female ashigaru.
Non-samurai as deadly combatants
As for the possibility of people of non-samurai birth (e.g. Kyuzo, Ayame and Mizuho) being better fighters than many samurai, the nonfiction book Secrets of the Samurai: Martial Arts of Feudal Japan listed a number of examples of legendary fighters who were not samurai:
"During the decline of the Tokugawa, for example, "The Tokaido's Number-One Boss," Jirosho of Shimizu (1820-93)... belonged to the merchant class... Going back even further in time to the more rigidly controlled period of the early Tokugawa era, the famous Chobei of Banzuin, chief of the Otokodate in Edo, was a chonin, not a military retainer."
[Otokodate were civilian 'self-defense' groups - and in some cases, protection-racket gangs - formed to protect merchant neighborhoods from lawless samurai bullies. The otokodate members of popular fiction were commoners and sometimes ronin.]
[chonin is a townsperson (part of the merchant class)]
Real world peasants were not always the passive and cowardly victims portrayed in Samurai 7. According to Secrets of the Samurai by Ratti/Westbrook, there were thousands of peasant revolts, large and small, during the Tokugawa era alone, and professional swordsmen did not always fare well against motivated peasant fighters. The most famous peasant rebellion is probably the Shimabara rebellion, during which the rebels killed 2000 samurai from Hizen including their daimyo in a raid. The rebel forces were said to have included women.
Although non-samurai classes had been officially disarmed and were theoretically not supposed to practice bushido, peasants practiced self-defense with farm tools and with their bare hands and feet. To quote Secrets of the Samurai:
"It was in these (the Ryukyu) islands ... that he (the samurai) learned how inadequate his armor and his array of traditional weapons could prove to be, when pitted against the bare hands and feet of a peasant sufficiently desperate and properly trained in the ancient Chinese techniques of striking."
The Ryukyu Kingdom is modern day Okinawa. Okinawan karate is believed to be a fusion of the indigenous fighting art te and Chinese kempo.1 Okinawa is famous for self-defense arts originating from people outside the warrior class. Fishermen developed Ekudi, the art of fighting with oars.2 The peasants used sickles (kama), grain grinders (tonfa), grain threshers (nunchaku), horse shoes (tekko) and horse harnesses (muge nunchaku) in combat.3
One thing I find over-simplistic (not to mention unrealistic) in S7 is how the samurai are made to look so 'cool' and 'noble' and how the peasants are made to look so wussy and 'uncool'. So I decided to write a different kind of peasant culture in my fics. Thus came Aiko the sickle-wielding peasant fighter and other Northland peasant characters. My inspiration for the Northland peasants, with their fierce pride and their history of violent resistance against samurai oppression, comes in part from the history of peasant rebellions in China and Japan. The Northlander peasants' use of farm tools as deadly weapons is inspired by the Okinawans.
A peasant woman leading a rebellion?
As for the possibility of a peasant woman leading a rebellion like Aiko in the Retribution series, it had happened that some peasant rebel armies in China had women as their supreme commanders, two examples being Lu Mu and Wang Cong'er. (See Female Warriors in the 'Retribution' Universe and in the 'Real World' for links to more information on them). Not to mention other peasant rebel armies with male leaders had entire female units under the command of a female officer. It can be argued that neither Lu Mu nor Wang were peasants - Lu Mu was a merchant and Wang was a street performer before they became rebels. But both merchants and performing artistes ranked below peasants in the Confucian class system, and it is not at all inconceivable that a peasant woman can take such a leadership role.
Notes:
- History of Okinawan Karate on www.wonder-okinawa.jp
- Eku on www.wonder-okinawa.jp
- Weapons in Martial Arts Training (Black Belt Magazine article) and Tools and Techniques of Martial Arts with Weaponry on www.wonder-okinawa.jp