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The Shimazu Invasion of the Ryukyu Islands
The Shimazu clan were firmly entrenched in the Satsuma peninsula approximating modern-day Kagoshima prefecture in the extreme southern area of Kyushu Island. The clan, famous for their strong sword style of Jigen ryu, were suffering after failed campaigns in Korea under Toyotomi Hideyoshi and after defeat at the Battle of Sekigahara in 1600, the final great battle that led to the establishment of the Tokugawa Shogunate. With a high number of samurai retainers and little in the way of spoils of war to repay them Shimazu Yoshihisa, the leader of the Shimazu clan, turned his eyes southwards. The Shogunate was only too happy to bleed the Shimazu further and distract them from any thoughts of rebellion (1). Thus, in 1609, an invasion fleet set sail and swept down the Ryukyuan island chain defeating all opposition at it went and occupying the islands taken.
Victory was swift. The Shimazu samurai were battle-hardened and there was little the Okinawans could do, moreso given that significant portions of the populace had had no access to weapons for 100 years. After three months of fighting Shuri castle was captured and the Shimazu took control of Okinawan political affairs. One result of this was the strict enforcement of a weapons ban, thereby finalizing the policy initially set forth by Sho Shin-O almost one hundred years earlier.
Jigen Ryu Influence on the Development of Karate
Jigen ryu is the battlefield sword art of the Satsuma samurai. As peace was established throughout the Ryukyu islands select pechin traveled to Satsuma peninsula and received training in this art. One such person was "Bushi" Matsumura, an important figure in the historical development of karate. Matsumura synthesized indigenous Okinawan fighting techniques with those of China arts and Jigen ryu. Notable among his students were Itosu Anko and Asato Anko, two men that would play a later crucial role in formalizing and popularizing Shuri te, while also heavily influencing Funakoshi Gichin, a man who would go on to do more than anyone to spread karate around Japan and beyond.
Another interesting historical development occurred much earlier when the second generation headmaster of the Jigen ryu, Togo Bizen no Kami Shigekata, was ordered by the head of the Shimazu clan to teach some rudimentary fighting skills to the farming population of Okinawa in case of an invasion; the peasant population could operate as a militia. This influence has been recorded in a folk dance known as the Jigen ryu Bo Odori.
Finally, it was also under Shimazu rule that kobudo developed. Kobudo is the combative use of common everyday implements such as the eiku (boat oar), the kama (sickle) and the famous nunchaku (rice flail).
Contrary to popular belief then, Shuri te (the forerunner of the Shotokan karate style created by Funakoshi Gichin and which spawned offshoots such as the Wado ryu, Kyokushinkai and Shotokai styles of karate) was not a simple amalgam of Chinese martial arts and Okinawan te. This is in contrast to the Naha te style introduced to Okinawa by Kanryo Higaonna which was most definitely a Chinese martial art (most likely some kind of Crane school) modified to a certain degree on Okinawa but free from the influence of the Jigen ryu. The Shimazu invasion and subsequent exposure to Jigen ryu that some masters had was a vital event in the development of what has become modern day karate do.
Okinawan Te / Ti Demonstration
The Dawn of Modern Karate Do
Shimazu control of Okinawa ended in 1868 with the Meiji Isshin (the restoration or revolution - depending on who you read - that put the Emperor back in control of Japan curtailing the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate). This event signaled the beginning of the modernization of Japan. Within just a few decades Japan went from a non-industrialized economy with little to no modern accoutrements to a 'wanna be' on the world stage. Industry changed radically along with the political scene; the army and navy were modernized thereby ending the age of the samurai once and for all and two significant wars were fought and won: the first against the Chinese in 1894-95 and the second against the Russians in 1904-05.
Japanese battleship Mikasa, the flagship of Admiral Tōgō Heihachirō at the decisive Battle of Tsushima (1905).
With the simultaneous eradication of the samurai class and their warrior ethos and the rise of a modern army trained to use the latest weaponry Japan's traditional martial arts suddenly found themselves irrelevant. The modern army was made up of conscripts who by necessity had to be trained as quickly and efficiently as possible. There was no impetus to developing a warrior from birth. Further, the traditional martial arts - both armed and unarmed - were clearly unable to compare to the devastating effectiveness of rifles and artillery. Not only did it take less time to train a soldier to use a firearm, that firearm was infinitely more efficacious. The traditional fighting arts were set to decline.
Japanese conscripts, part of Japan's new modern army, charge the Russian lines during the Russo-Japanese war (1905-05). This was the first time an Asian country had defeated a European power.
Note the use of modern firearms, the bayonet and the uniform of the soldiers. The days of the samurai were over.
Against this backdrop of modernization the classic arts (bujutsu) reinvented themselves as predominantly a way of life (budo). Kenjutsu became kendo, or the way of the sword, while ju jutsu became judo, or the soft way. While retaining a core of combative techniques, the emphasis was less on practical application in a fight and more on developing the morality of practitioners while fostering a sense of 'Japaneseness' in the face of Westernization.
Japan's Monbusho (Ministry of Education) wholeheartedly supported the spread of various budo (karate, judo, kendo and so on) in the school system and so the (modified) techniques of yesteryear reached a new and wider audience. Training was serious and a sense of shugyo (austerity in practice) prevailed.
(1) Some historians argue that the Japanese campaigns on the Korean peninsula were pursued by Toyotomi Hideyoshi for a similar reason: to either kill off surviving samurai from the civil war period or to otherwise remove them from the mainland if they were victorious.
It is also worth noting that it was Saigo Takamori, a major for in Satsuma politics who led a revolt against the Imperial government in 1877. His samurai were firmly defeated by a conscript army utilizing modern weaponry, thereby once and for all ending samurai dominance of the battlefield. Fans of the movie The Last Samurai starring Tom Cruise, Ken Watanabe and Koyuki will be interested to note that the events portrayed are heavily influenced these real life events.
