3 
This number, besides fighting men, included functionaries and employees of 
every sort, from the highest to the lowest. 
Their caste enjoyed a very high prestige and excelled all other classes, such as 
farmers and especially merchants and shopkeepers, who were almost on the last 
rung of the social ladder. On the eve of the revolution, even in 1867, the great¬ 
est banker of Tokio, the Rothschild of Japan, prostrated himself with his fore¬ 
head to the ground before handing his pay to a Samourai with the rank of sub¬ 
lieutenant. 
Legend of the Forty-seven Samourais. 
This caste was devoted to their princes even to death. The sentiment of 
honour with them was carried to the highest pitch, and what will give an idea of 
it is the legend, indeed quite authentic, of the forty-seven Samourais who stabbed 
themselves to death under the following circumstances :— 
Their prince had suffered an insult; they resolved to avenge him. But to 
succeed more surely and to await a favourable occasion they had to feign forget¬ 
fulness of their vengeance. Thus one day a Samourai of another clan accused 
them of cowardice; they submitted in silence to this fresh insult. Shortly after¬ 
wards the favourable opportunity occurred and they killed their prince’s enemy. 
This vengeance accomplished—and to conform to the laws of Japanese honour 
and to expiate their crime—they all went away together and each killed himself 
by his own hand. The Samourai who had accused them of cowardice was seized 
with remorse at having insulted these brave men, and at once decided that honour 
required his death by his own hand on their tomb. 
The tomb of these men at arms was still, 25 years ago, the object of an annual 
pilgrimage of the Japanese people. And here it should be noted that suicide is 
rare in Japan when honour is not at stake. 
With such a military caste, having a fanatic love of the profession of arms, and 
filling all posts in the government of each province, one understands readily that 
the Japanese Empire has been for centuries the theatre of intestine struggles. 
It was to try and introduce order into this feudal anarchy that the functions of 
Shogun were created in the century previous to the Christian era. The acts of 
courage and heroism which have distinguished these struggles would fill volumes. 
Expedition to Corea in the 16th Century. 
Among them may be cited an expedition directed against Corea and China at 
the time when Henry IY was ascending the throne of France and Elizabeth was 
Queen of England. Admiral Layrle gives the following account of it:— 
In a most troublous time, in 1590, a Shogun formed the idea of closing the 
era of dissension, and of employing all these soldiers, inured to war by civil 
strife, in the conquest of Corea and China. 
For five years he prepared the means of throwing upon the Asiatic continent a 
Japanese Armada. He assembled his generals, shewed them on a map the road 
to Pekin, inflamed their minds with an idea of the wealth which such a campaign 
would bring them, and he distributed in advance the territories which their cour¬ 
age was to conquer. Enthusiasm was universal among these warlike people, and 
300,000 men left the western coast of Japan. Corea was soon three parts con¬ 
quered and the army was on the Manchurian frontier. Spoils innumerable picked 
up on the field of battle—notably thousands of human ears which filled the junks 
•—had been sent to the Imperial city, Kioto, when death stopped the career of 
the victorious Shogun. He dead, civil war soon broke out again in Japan, and 
the Army in Corea was recalled by the coalised princes of the south who would 
not recognize the new Shogun. 
the shogun yeyas. —He advanced at the head of 75,000 men against the 
southern coalised princes who had 128,000 men. 
