What would you do if you were in a war you couldn’t win and you’re running out of
money?
That was the situation the Japanese government was in.
Yeah, they had armies a million times bigger than those of the Emishi, but it’s hard
to defend the entire northeast region of Japan.
They had to protect every single settlement.
It was easier for the Emishi, who were using guerilla tactics.
Emishi troops fought on horseback.
They were like water.
Their speed allowed them to flow into the smallest cracks in the Japanese defenses.
They chose when and where to attack, always where the enemy was weakest.
It’s like fighting Brett, the big school bully.
You don’t attack Brett physically, that’s where he’s strongest.
You attack him emotionally, by telling him the only reason Dad’s an alcoholic and lost
his job is because Brett is Mom’s lovechild with another man.
That’ll do it.
Or go for the balls, that works too.
Maintaining the large armies actually became a problem for Japan.
They required a lot of food and money and Vespene gas, and they weren’t even that
good.
Military service was mandatory for most men.
Their training was basically: here’s a spear, stick em with the pointy end.
Desertion was a problem.
It became so bad that in 792, Emperor Kanmu said “the hell with this” and abolished
mandatory military service.
From then on, each province had to raise their own local militia.
Then in 979, the court gave the reins of the Japanese war machine (war...horse?) to a man
who would be given the most credit for defeating the Emishi barbarians.
His name was Sakanoue no Tamuramaro (坂上田村麻呂).
The Japanese court gave him the title of seii taishogun (征夷大将軍).
People have translated this title a bunch of different ways, but because I love you
I chose the most badass sounding one:
Barbarian Conquering Generalissimo.
Miki: Wait...is this where the title shogun came from?
Why, yes, Miki, this was where shogun came from.
The title was reused later on and shortened to shogun when Japan decided to experiment
a little bit with a military dictatorship, oh god it lasted 700 years.
Tamuramaro was actually the second seii taishogun, the first was someone named
Otomo no Otomaro (大伴弟麻呂).
No, that’s not an otocorrect.
But next to Tamuramaro, Otomaro was like the forgotten general.
So let’s forget about him.
Tamuramaro becoming seii taishogun was part of a shift in the court’s war strategy.
Before, they chose civilians, court nobles, to lead their armies.
Surprised that people with no military experience had a hard time leading the military, the
court started to move away from civilian leadership.
They called veterans back to the front lines, gave ranks and rewards for being awesome on
the battlefield.
The man Tamuramaro himself came from a military family, and he was certainly not black, you
silly silly people.
The only way he could’ve been black is if you meant it in the general sense that we
all originally came from Africa.
In 800, Tamuramaro took an army north and did something that those before him couldn’t
do.
He defeated and captured two Emishi leaders.
One of them was the legendary warchief Aterui, who once beat an army 50 times his size.
See the previous video.
In 802, the Emishi chieftains were taken to Kyoto and beheaded.
Tamuramaro very much opposed this.
It could be because he had actually negotiated a peace with the Emishi, and the beheading
of one side is usually not part of a peace deal.
Either way, that was the end of Aterui, the legendary Emishi warchief.
We’re seeing the beginnings of a warrior class in Japan.
The subjugation wars gave us many of the features that we would associate with the samurai,
because aside from changing the military leadership to be run by military men, the subjugation
wars also forced changes to military technology.
After seeing the Emishi rock their world with horse archers, the Japanese decided that’s
what they wanted for Christmas, and KFC.
They moved towards small skilled units of horse archers rather large armies of unskilled
foot soldiers.
They still couldn’t figure out a way to grow fabulous Emishi beards though.
They switched from using iron armor to leather armor.
Yeah, iron was tougher, but it was heavy and prone to rusting, and it took a lot of work
to fix dents in the armor.
Leather was lighter and easier to make and didn’t rust.
It was great on horseback.
And a good way to spice things up in the bedroom.
Just remember, safewords don’t work through a ball gag.
The shape of their swords also changed.
Swords used to be straight, but became curved.
Some historians say it was because curved swords made it better for slashing, which
is easier to do on a horse.
That seems to make sense, but others say yeah it wasn’t because they were better for slashing
from a horse.
It was because they changed their forging techniques.
There are a bunch of techniques and we can probably do a whole video about them, but
basically, they wanted swords that were strong, but not too strong because they’d become
brittle and break more easily.
The solution was to have swords where the sharp edge was really strong, but the backside
of the blade was more flexible and less prone to breaking.
This involved heating up the sharp edge more or letting it cool down faster, causing it
to expand more than the backside, resulting in a curve.
The fact that curved swords were better for slashing was just a happy side effect.
In 805, Emperor Kanmu called an end to the wars.
The two major projects of Kanmu’s reign were one, moving the capital to Heian-kyo,
which would later be named Kyoto.
And two, these subjugation wars against the Emishi.
These two projects were so expensive that the court was running out of money.
After decades of war, the rest of the court became Elsa.
They were all, let it gooo.
And so he did.
There was one last attack in 811, and then the Japanese court declared victory!
Pack it up, let’s go home boys.
Good for them.
Except, it was all talk.
Things didn’t really change.
The Emishi still raided Japanese settlements.
But instead of saying, “oh no we have these outsiders raiding Japanese settlements”
the court started saying, “oh no people in our provinces are rebelling.”
They called the Emishi surrendered barbarians.
The Emishi were like, dude we haven’t surrendered, then went back to stroking each other’s
beards.
It seemed like the Japanese understood that this was all a word game, because they still
called northeastern Honshu the land of the barbarians.
The Emishi warriors were like water.
You can’t get rid of water by pounding it with your hand, but you can slowly absorb
it.
And that’s what the Japanese did.
Actually they were already doing that before all of this war nonsense.
They kept on building Japanese settlements, creeping further and further into Emishi territory,
increasing their influence.
A funny thing happened though.
Under Japanese rule (in quotes), the Emishi thrived more than ever, and they even built
a city that rivaled Kyoto, the Japanese capital.
So what happened was, there were still rebellious regions in Dewa and Mutsu provinces.
The Japanese decided it was too costly to keep sending forces to fight them, so they
came to a compromise:
Using barbarians to control barbarians.
They allowed Emishi leaders who had already surrendered to rule over these rebellious
regions.
A territory formed within Dewa and Mutsu that became pretty much independent from Japan
throughout the Heian Period.
Some powerful Emishi houses popped up.
One of them had a name you may recognize.
They were the Oshu Fujiwara (奥州藤原), or the Northern Fujiwara.
If you didn’t know, the Fujiwara clan famously married their daughters into the Imperial
Family, allowing them control over the Heian court for 200 years.
The Northern Fujiwara was a branch of the main Fujiwara line.
Its founder was Fujiwara no Kiyohira (藤原清衡), the son of a Fujiwara father and an Emishi
mother, that scoundrel.
His father fought alongside the Emishi against the Japanese and the court branded him a traitor.
So the Northern Fujiwara was separate from the rest of the Fujiwara in Japan.
They “went native” if you wanna call it that.
They ruled over northeastern Honshu from their capital at Hiraizumi (平泉), and they were
really successful.
The historical records come from the Japanese, so they tend to downplay the power of the
Northern Fujiwara and the city of Hiraizumi, but we’ve dug up all kinds of fine pottery
and trade items like furs and Jimmy Choos.
It revealed that Hiraizumi was a major economic and political center that rivaled Kyoto itself.
Kiyohira’s life mission was to build a grand system of temples and gardens, a legacy for
him and his family, so these were probably major cultural centers too.
Hiraizumi thrived and the Emishi had virtual independence until 1189, when Minamoto no
Yoritomo (源頼朝) came in and just demolished them.
And that was the end of that.
Alright you ready?
Today’s quiz question is: The wrestling match between Takemikazuchi and Okuninushi’s
son was the mythical origin of what?
I will randomly choose one winner from the correct answers in 24 hours, and the winner
gets to choose one of these babies.
Good luck.
Last week’s winner was 1290Li!
I wanna thank the two new patrons this week:
Yuko Kanno I Kanno believe it,
and Raouf Boumedal
Want more videos about the Emishi?
Check out this playlist!
Thank you so much you guys. Alright much love and spread the knowledge!