IMAGAWA RYOSHUN, REGULATIONS
Now that we have covered armour, weapons and the martial arts, I am sure you are eager to learn about going to war, but please don’t skip this chapter, because you must realize that much of your time will be taken up by the comparatively mundane and boring job of managing your domain, and it is vital that you get it right. You will not be able to control men on a battlefield if you cannot control them on a rice field.
How to Handle and Set an Example to the Lower Orders
As a samurai you will be expected to manage every aspect of life within the lands your lord has allotted to you. The larger the area of land, the greater will be the responsibilities and the more numerous the problems. Should you become a lord yourself, you will have the awesome task of ruling an entire province. In the olden days it was so easy. You just told the farmers what to do and beat them if they didn’t do it; there could be no greater compliment than for it to be remarked that you were harsh with your peasants. Nowadays it is all very different. There are land surveys to complete, tax returns to maintain, record-keeping to do, storehouses to supervise, magistrates’ duties to perform – not to mention organizing the clearing of dead bodies from the streets after a revenge raid, and suchlike. These tasks are difficult enough when you are in personal contact with your territories, but become almost impossible when a lord is forced to leave his province for several months, either to fight or to attend court in Edo. So how does a lord run his own territory while also serving the shogun in a personal capacity at one and the same time?
The answer is delegation. Select some junior person from among your samurai. Make him your senior counsellor or some such title, and let him run your domain while you go off to fight. He may well embezzle some of your money, but that’s a small price to pay for the freedom to be a fighting warrior. While you are away, of course, you must not neglect your responsibility of setting an example to the lower classes. Rumours will quickly spread back to your domain if anyone observes you behaving in an unseemly fashion, and that would encourage rebellion and other unspeakable practices.
Tough on Crime, and Tough on the Causes of Crime
Let us begin with the maintenance of law and order. Sadly, there will be those within your domain who fail to appreciate both the excellent example you set them and also the need for them to display filial piety to a lord as to a father. Such evil fellows may turn to crime, and it will be your duty both to apprehend them and to punish them. Your task will be made immeasurably easier if you follow six simple rules that can make crime prevention a reality within your domain:
Rule One: Don’t let them in
Why suffer from the carelessness of neighbours by allowing your province to become a place of sanctuary for their absconding felons? Make sure the entrances to your domain are closely guarded.
Rule Two: Don’t tolerate Christianity
As I have said elsewhere, the pernicious religion of Christianity is almost an invitation to wrongdoing. These worthless wretches defy the wisdom of their betters, undermine the law of the gods and Buddhas and lay Japan open to the foreigners who would enslave us. Have no truck with them.
Rule Three: Prohibit gambling
Few pursuits seduce the lower orders into wasting their time so much as the despicable practice of gambling. Some people risk huge amounts on the fall of dice; others place wagers on the outcome of sumo wrestling bouts. If you can eradicate this evil then you will indeed have a peaceful domain.
Rule Four: Inform, inform, inform
The citizens of your domain must be made to realize that they have a duty to inform on anyone they suspect of breaking the law. To assist with this process you must make it clear to them that if they fail to disclose a culprit’s whereabouts, then the felon’s punishment will be inflicted upon them and their families instead. Few measures are better at bringing out the truth.
Rule Five: Support your local police
The maintenance of peace and order within your domain will be greatly facilitated if, following the example set in Edo by His Most Excellent Highness, you designate certain lower-ranking samurai as officers of the watch. These stout fellows not only act as reliable recipients for an informant’s revelations, but also act as a visible and reassuring presence on our streets.
Rule Six: Understand the underlying causes of crime
It is very important to appreciate that many crimes have social origins, and that by understanding these contributory factors, misdemeanours may be prevented before they occur. So what are these social factors, and what can we do about them? In a nutshell, crime is committed by lewd and sordid persons who, through some failing in a previous existence, were not favoured with rebirth into the samurai class. As it is impossible for any of them to change this unfortunate status, they must be taught to respect both the property and the judgment of their superiors. If one of these persons commits a crime, is informed upon and confesses to the act, then a situation of harmony may be swiftly restored by his punishment. Problems arise only when a felon who is undoubtedly guilty fails to confess, because the only valid proof of guilt is the prisoner’s own confession, taken down in writing and sealed by him. In this situation you are referred to the following section.
A Few Useful Tortures
If a felon fails to confess to a crime, torture is the only resort. These are presented here in order of increasing severity:
1 Scourging
A thorough beating with bamboo canes is usually sufficient to provoke a confession. If not, move on to:
When a samurai is placed incharge of lower-class persons he has to be prepared to exercise his authority. Strictness is essential, and so punishment such as this, a thorough beating of the buttocks, is sometimes thought necessary.
2 Hugging the stone
The criminal is made to kneel on a platform of sharp, three-cornered wooden batons in front of a pillar to which he is tied. Stone slabs are then placed across his thighs. Five should be ample to induce a confession, but ten are known to have been used on some stubborn persons.
When a criminal has failed to confess, the torture technique of the slabs (often called ‘hugging the stone’) should be sufficient to persuade him to admit his guilt.
3 The lobster
Allow the criminal’s body to recover from hugging the stone (a few days should suffice) and then truss him up with his arms behind him and his legs in front. Take note of his skin colour, which over a few hours should change from red to purple to dark green. If it then passes to white his death is imminent, so the ropes should be untied.
A very stubborn criminal is tiedup like a lobster to get him to confess. It is a tricky technique to use, because the felon may die before his admission of guilt.
4 Suspension
Tie the criminal’s arms behind him and hang him from a rope by the wrists. Leave him there for as long as it takes to evoke a confession.
The final method for persuading a criminal to confess is to suspend him from a rope and leave him there until he admits his crime. He can then be executed in the sure knowledge that justice has been done.
Once a confession has been obtained your work is complete. The full legal process has been gone through and the criminal may now be executed. You will of course play no part in this unspeakable process, which will be handled by those who are scarcely human, but may withdraw, satisfied that you have assisted in bringing about the administration of justice. The streets of Japan will be that little bit safer because of your punctilious and merciful actions.
The Samurai’s Own Behaviour
We now move on to the delicate question of your own behaviour, and there are certain situations when you must be particularly on your guard against temptation. Sadly, some members of the samurai class have been known to forget their exalted status and behave as if they were lewd and sordid persons. Such traitors to their class will suffer the most dreadful consequences, although in their case the ultimate penalty is always generously relaxed so that a samurai condemned to death may enjoy the Way of the Warrior by committing suicide instead of being executed. We are privileged indeed.
So where are you most at risk of losing your virtue? Well, the present need to provide guard duty for the shogun has meant that thousands of samurai like you have had to carry out long tours of duty in Edo since that city became our capital in 1603. When you are in Edo there is actually very little to do inside your lord’s mansion except polish his armour ready for the march back to your castle-town in six months’ time. You will therefore have time on your hands, and in Edo there are lots of people who will be more than ready to relieve you of your money or your life.
Much of a samurai’s time in the days of peace is spent travelling the highways of Japan between one’s castle-town and the shogun’s capital of Edo.
I mention first the men called otokodate, which literally means ‘chivalrous fellows’. This is far from being an accurate description. The otokodate are in fact lewd and sordid persons from the urban lower classes who have taken on airs that are totally inappropriate for someone from such a lowly position in society. They also carry swords. Yes, you read that correctly. They carry S-W-O-R-D-S. Sounds extraordinary, doesn’t it? Did not Lord Toyotomi Hideyoshi in 1588 confiscate every sword in Japan that was not owned by a samurai, and then melt them all down to help make iron bolts for a great statue of Buddha he was building in Kyoto for the benefit of the nation? (Strictly speaking, he didn’t actually melt any of them down but that’s what he told the people he seized them from.) And is not the wearing of swords now confined only to the samurai class, as decreed by His Most Illustrious Highness? Indeed this is true, but in the seedy world of Edo, I am afraid, swords can be readily obtained, and these otokodate swagger about as if they were samurai, looking for trouble.
Whatever you do, do not accept a challenge to combat from one of these ruffians. Yes, your sword-fighting skills will be vastly superior to his, but these appalling persons never fight alone. Their idea of honourable single combat is to have you face one man while six others grab you from behind. My tips are to avoid dark alleys and not to get drunk, because it cannot be overemphasized that most assaults on samurai take place when the victim is intoxicated.
On the whole, the otokodate will leave you alone as long as you take sensible precautions, but of all the temptations that will come your way while on duty in Edo, one will appear – perhaps literally – knocking at your door. I think you can guess what I’m talking about. No, not geisha. You are unlikely to be able to hire a geisha on your stipend. I mean the ladies of the night in the Yoshiwara district of Edo. They will target you because you are a young man, a long way from home in a big city. Be warned, the vast majority of these women are infected with Chinese pox, a loathsome disease they pass on to any man who dallies with them. Despite the name, Chinese pox was brought to Japan by the Portuguese. Catch the pox and you will be leaving this world in unspeakable agony long before your time is due – and don’t think you will be heading for the White Jade Pavilion. There will be no golden lotus to sit on where you are going. Instead, ghastly demons will tear the flesh from your bones with spiked forks.
It’s just not worth it, is it?
Under the Tokugawa, a daimyo’s family are required to live in Edo under the protection of the shogun. Ladies like these receive visits from their husbands once or twice a year.
Tobacco – Just Say No
When you are out on the streets of Edo enjoying the evening air you may be accosted by some rascal asking you to try something called tobacco. If approached in this way, there is one simple, golden rule: just say no. Tobacco is a deadly and addictive drug made from a noxious weed that is harvested, dried, cut into shreds and then fed into a small container called a pipe. The tobacco is then ignited and the smoke inhaled. How ridiculous it is! Like most evils in present-day Japan, tobacco has its origins overseas; of all the nefarious things brought here by the Portuguese (with the possible exceptions of Christianity and Chinese pox) there is no greater vice, no pursuit more injurious to the reputation of a samurai than the appalling practice of smoking tobacco. I understand that the tobacco plant grows naturally in a place called ‘America’. Judging by the effects that tobacco produces on a person’s behaviour, if ever we Japanese are unlucky enough to meet ‘Americans’ then we may reasonably expect them to be hopelessly addled and of no use to anyone. I have it on reliable authority that His Most Excellent Highness intends to ban tobacco. Once this is carried out, smoking will cease to exist.