Samurai World
The first samurai regime in Japan was established in 1192 and the last samurai regime ended in 1867.
Though there are some arguments about the starting year of the samurai era, roughly speaking the samurai governed Japan for almost 700 years.
However, they did not challenge authority the Emperor had in Kyoto. Emperors of Japan secured their status as the supreme religious, traditional, and public existence in Japan to date for 2000 years through the samurai era. Put simply, the imperial court of Japan in the samurai era was like the Vatican of today. High ranking samurais had their titles in the imperial court, though they never attended imperial meetings in the imperial court in Kyoto.
The first samurai regime was established in Kamakura, some 50 kilometers south west of Tokyo, facing Sagami Bay and Mt. Fuji over the bay in 1192. It was not the imperial court but the samurai regimes that collected tax and kept troops during the samurai era. So, the head of the samurai regime, called Shogun, had every power to govern Japan except rights to perform the imperial shinto rituals and endow subjects with imperial titles.
Samurais are essentially politicians, bureaucrats, scholars, engineers, and experts in various fields except farming, manufacturing and private commerce as well as religion, namely Buddhism. So, to be a samurai, you have to read and write and also master some military art. Most of samurais learnt Confucianism and Buddhism as their intellectual basement. Some samurai scholars in the 18th and the 19th century even studied advanced mathematics. Yet, samurais were expected to fight and die at any time so ordered, requested, or compelled. But, you can have reasonably a rich life if you become a samurai, since every samurai had in theory his lord who provided his subjects with enough rice which each samurai could sell for money. A samurai lord had his own territory, though he was also subject to Shogun based in a samurai capital, such as Kamaukra and Edo (Tokyo).
Though even a son of a farmer had a chance to be a samurai, usually to be a samurai one had to be born in a samurai clan. But what is the origin of samurais?
They could be traced back to some emperors. Or some sons of some emperors left the imperial court to be members of the noble class. And, some of them developed military power to govern and protect their territory. Accordingly, higher ranking samurais had imperial titles to prove that they were also members of the noble class under the emperor. In this context samurais formed one social class above farmers, craftsmen, and merchants as the governing class, though farmers accounted for 90% of the Japanese population in the samurai era.
And these samurais governed Japan till 1868. But, eve after 1868 to 1945, descendants of samurais occupied upper positions of the Imperial Government and the Imperial Military which were however Westernized and modernized.
Yet, with the end of WWII, those samurai spirit had gone.
It was as if two atomic (nuclear) bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki blew it off.
Now, I just wonder what the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident blew off.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minamoto_no_Yoritomo
http://www.rekishikan.museum.ibk.ed.jp/06_jiten/tokugawa/top.htm
(To make sure, samurai is usually called "bushi" in a little more formal form. And, traditionally there were no such a social class in China and Korea as can be comparable to the Japanese samurai/bushi class. This is one of the reasons why Japanese have never been afraid of Koreans and Chinese.
And, of course, the Japanese global success since the late 19th century is ascribed to this tradition of the samurai/bushi culture and spirit, good or bad, which China, Korea, and any other Asian nations do not have...)
*** *** *** ***
Joh 10:28 And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand.