then why did the samurai fight the ninjas who which the government ordered the ninjas to take out the samurai.. why did the samurai fight the government? well they did because they were being controlled unfairly so whos the slave now?
Samurai (
侍?) is the term for the military nobility of
pre-industrial Japan. According to translator
William Scott Wilson: "In Chinese, the character 侍 was originally a verb meaning to wait upon or accompany a person in the upper ranks of society, and this is also true of the original term in Japanese,
saburau. In both countries the terms were nominalized to mean "those who serve in close attendance to the nobility," the pronunciation in Japanese changing to
saburai." According to Wilson, an early reference to the word "samurai" appears in the
Kokin Wakashū (905–914), the first imperial anthology of poems, completed in the first part of the 10th century.
Emperor Meiji abolished the samurai's right to be the only armed force in favor of a more modern, western-style, conscripted army in 1873. Samurai became
Shizoku (士族
who retained some of their salaries, but the right to wear a katana in public was eventually abolished along with the right to
execute commoners who paid them disrespect.
The samurai finally came to an end after hundreds of years of enjoyment of their status, their powers, and their ability to shape the government of Japan. However, the rule of the state by the military class was not yet over.
In defining how a modern Japan should be, members of the Meiji government decided to follow the footsteps of
United Kingdom and
Germany, basing the country on the concept of "
noblesse oblige". Samurai were not to be a political force under the new order.
With the
Meiji reforms in the late 19th century, the samurai class was abolished, and a western-style national army was established. The Imperial Japanese Armies were conscripted, but many samurai volunteered to be soldiers and many advanced to be trained as officers. Much of the Imperial Army officer class was of samurai origin and they were highly motivated, disciplined and exceptionally trained.
The last samurai conflict was arguably in 1877, during the
Satsuma Rebellion in the
Battle of Shiroyama. This conflict had its genesis in the previous uprising to defeat the Tokugawa Shogunate, leading to the Meiji Restoration.
The newly formed government instituted radical changes, aimed at reducing the power of the feudal domains, including Satsuma, and the dissolution of samurai status. This led to the ultimately premature uprising, led by
Saigō Takamori.
Samurai were many of the early exchange students, not directly because they were samurai, but because many samurai were literate and well-educated scholars. Some of these exchange students started private schools for higher educations, while many samurai took pens instead of guns and became reporters and writers, setting up newspaper companies, and others entered governmental service.
so if you could please point out the bit about them all getting killed by ninjas i would be more than grateful, also ive supplied the link to this article so you can read it for yourself and ACTUALLY learn something about japanese history that you havent gleaned from hollywoods latest blockbuster
link-
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samurai#Decline