Martial Arts Of The World - Webs

190 Japan
led by Tokugawa Ieyasu won a decisive victory, and Toyotomi supporters
retreated to Ôsaka Castle. The third of the three unifiers, Tokugawa
Ieyasu, successfully ended a long period of warfare, and established his
Tokugawa shogunate in Edo (present-day Tokyo). In 1614 Tokugawa
Hidetada signed a peace treaty with Toyotomi Hideyori, according to
which the moats and obstructions around Ôsaka Castle were to be removed.
A year later, Tokugawa forces attacked Ôsaka Castle and set it on
fire as Hideyori and his mother committed seppuku.
Under the Tokugawa regime Japan finally enjoyed a long period of internal
peace that drastically changed the characteristics of the Japanese
samurai. Samurai had been uprooted from the countryside, had lost their
landed estates, and were placed in urban areas. It was during that time that
the ideal image of the samurai based on Confucian thought was promoted,
schools of martial discipline became popular, and the foundation of martial
lineages by experienced able warriors became common. By the end of
the Tokugawa shogunate there were hundreds of established martial lineages
in the form of organized schools, some of which enjoyed official patronage
by the bakufu and daimyo. Since the great social and political reforms
of the Meiji Restoration (1868), some martial traditions have
become extinct, others have been further divided into branches, and still
other schools have made a successful transition to sport competition.
Weapons and Technology
The arsenal of the Japanese warrior included a wide variety of bladed
weapons, bows, chain weapons, stick and staff, firearms, concealed
weapons, tools, projectiles, explosives, poisons, and many specialized
weapons for specific purposes. The appearance of these weapons coincided
with technological developments such as the casting of iron and the use of
wood-processing methods, while other weapons were developed as a result
of contacts with foreign cultures. Other reasons for the appearance of certain
weapons were social and political changes that resulted in the intensification
of warfare, or political stability, which reduced warfare to police
duties.
Perhaps the most well known among Japanese weapons is the curved
single-edged sword (the main types of which include the tachi, the katana,
the kodachi, and the wakizashi), which has always symbolized the soul and
spirit of the Japanese warrior. It has been in use in warfare from the earliest
Japanese civilization until the modern period. Iron-casting technology
necessary for the production of swords was introduced to Japan from the
continent in the Yayoi period, during which there was intensive social stratification
and state formation. Knowledge of iron casting was crucial for
those local chieftains competing for power, who at the same time sought to