Japan’s Warlords

Emperors in medieval Japan had little power, relying on warlords, or shoguns, who led armies of warriors and ruled the land.

Japan’s emperors were dominated by powerful military families. From these soldier clans came the shoguns, such as the powerful Minamoto Yoritomo (1147-99). The shoguns drove off attacks from Mongol China with their fiercely loyal samurai warriors. Like a knight in Europe, a samurai held land that was farmed by peasants, while he hunted or trained with sword and bow. The samurai eventually came to form an elite warrior class. They practiced Zen Buddhism, a philosophy brought to Japan from China in 582.

From the 1300s, Japan was torn apart by civil wars between daimyos – lords who built castles to guard their lands. The daimyos led armies of samurai warriors. The most powerful daimyo was Hideyoshi Toyotomi (1537-98), a peasant who rose to become a samurai warlord. He controlled all Japan from 1585 until his death. One of his lieutenants, leyasu, became shogun in 1603 and founded the Tokugawa dynasty.

DIVINE WIND

The Japanese believed the gods protected them. In 1274 and 1281, Kublai Khan sent fleets to conquer Japan. The first fled before a storm. The second was sunk by a typhoon (shown here as a god), which the Japanese called kamikaze, or ‘divine wind’.