Yes, the orders passed by Toyotomi made a big impact on all of this. Ironically, it was his decrees that solidified the "status" of most Ji-samurai as Ji-samurai. For example, I was talking about the Iba of Kirihara in a previous email. Some of them were "legal country samurai"... but some of them had, in the weird workings of Toyotomi, lost their "legal status" as samurai..
However, in the backwoods... "legal status" means very little. They maintained their samurai lifestyle, married farmer's daughters if they wanted, and continue to train and amass weapons. Large areas of land also belonged to them. In a way, these domains made excellent hide-outs for certain groups.
����� Kinda like how the ronin rules led to all the drama at Kyoto in the early 1620s, these samurai status and "you can't do this" decrees passed by Toyotomi actually created a blackmarket of samurai activity, as it were.
��� Because of the family ties between Ji-samurai who legally had status and Ji-Samurai who had lost their status.... Many ubran samurai eventually a distaste for the Ji-samurai in general.
��� "Country Samurai" was indeed meant as an insult at the time.
Like I said before, it would be like calling someone a "hick" or a "redneck". However, some Ji-samurai loved the name, just like some love being a "country hick" these days.
--- On Wed, 2/17/10, Michael Lorimer <mijalo_jp@...> wrote:
From: Michael Lorimer <mijalo_jp@...>
Subject: Re: [samuraihistory] Re: Ji-samurai, Ikki, and Sousen? Also, samurai life
To: samuraihistory@yahoogroups.com
Date: Wednesday, February 17, 2010, 7:34 AM
Why did they "rule" the localities? Put most simply, they were armed. During the Do-ikki of the later 15th Century, they were still agriculturalists (either as minor owners or cultivators) , but had the advantage of being armed (perhaps not to the level of samurai retained by local daimyo), placing them slightly higher up the scale to the average peasant with mud on his feet. This was undoubtedly one of the reasons ashigaru and samurai were not permitted to return to their home villages by the statutes of Toyotomi Hideyoshi, since they gave an element of martial skill to rural discontent.
--- On Tue, 16/2/10, konohawolfie wrote:
From: konohawolfie
Subject: [samuraihistory] Re: Ji-samurai, Ikki, and Sousen? Also, samurai life
To: samuraihistory@ yahoogroups. com
Date: Tuesday, 16 February, 2010, 22:19
Thank you for replying Steven,
I appreciate the information and it clears things up. Do you have any more background knowledge on Ji-samurai? Not all of them could be outcasts (possible ronin)? How did they get to rule the rural areas if they were shunned by the more popular/common samurai? And how/why did the lower class accept them?
Also, do you have information on the structure of Sousen?: http://ja.wikipedia .org/wiki/ %E6%83%A3% E6%9D%91
--- In samuraihistory@ yahoogroups. com, Steven Matsheshu wrote:
>
> Some of my family's ancestors can be identified as Ji-samurai. This was because they were located deep in rural territory (out in Gamo-gun Omihachiman area) and while most of them were identified as samurai,  some of them were officially not recognized as samurai, even though many of their relatives were.. it created an ackward situation. Remember, deep in the rural areas, the "laws and codes" were easily bent. Samurai marrying peasant girls, etc.etc. --- and because of this, many of the samurai in the more urban areas -- who knew this kind of stuff was going on --- held these samurai in contempt and thus, the country samurai were seen as being barely samurai by most non-country samurai.
>  So, in my experience, Ji-Samurai refers to samurai families that live "out in the woods" and might even be married into farmer/merchent families.  There were also ackward situations of ronins coming out and staying at their ji-samurai relative's lands and using their relative's land as an headquarters to run mercenary-like businesses,etc. etc.
> Â
> ﾂ�ﾂ� O.k.. basically... the idea of Ji-Samurai is like "redneck samurai" or "hillbilly samurai"... .you live way out in the boon-docks, you don't follow many of the laws and customs, and because of this, you don't get alot of respect from your urban counter-parts. . but you get away with ALOT of stuff out in those boon-docks !
> Â
>  Hahaha.. I love ji-samurai. .. hahaha
> ﾂ�ﾂ�ﾂ�ﾂ�ﾂ�ﾂ�
>
> --- On Mon, 2/15/10, konohawolfie wrote:
>
>
> From: konohawolfie
> Subject: [samuraihistory] Ji-samurai, Ikki, and Sousen? Also, samurai life
> To: samuraihistory@ yahoogroups. com
> Date: Monday, February 15, 2010, 1:01 AM
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> Hi Guys,
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> The name's Wolfie (or that's my nickname. Real name's Sara) and I am a new member to the Samurai History Group. I am very impressed with the knowledge of samurai and feudal history in the Archives, so I have a few questions pertaining to Ji-samurai, the Ikki (the rebellions?) and Sousen.
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> I don't think Wikipedia provides enough detail and I may be confused with the samurai society in particular. I am too familiar with the popular samurai that go to the capital, and it seems that samurai are both the rulers of the provinces and the soldiers underneath the rulers.
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> Why/how were there lower-ranked rural samurai [Zi-samurai] ? And Ikki are like those who rebel against the Capital forces and live in rural villages (I think called Sousen?)?
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> Also, I find it a little hard to believe that few people became samurai and I read about large armies ;) What was samurai life like? What did they do in an average day?
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> Thank you
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