How Samurai Earned Salary

Any companies guarantee their salary by law if only getting jobs. However, in case of samurai, even if they always join wars, it was not definitely guaranteed because it depended on how many heads they got (you think it's cruel? but it was usual in that period). So, samurai rather focused on rummaging through dead bodies more than leading the victory and this motivation often became the important factor of the defeat.



Meanwhile, the first person who hired people by monthly payment was Nobunaga Oda, and his army, introducing new value, successfully inspired soldiers to become genuine samurai from farmers (soldiers in those days were almost farmers called temporarily). as a result, he controlled main cities in those days and should have been the first conqueror of Japan, but he was suddenly killed by the betrayal of his assistant.



By the way, Shingen Takeda, called the most strongest samurai in that period, introduced bonuses in addition to ordinal salary and his follower swore allegiance of him because of bonuses. However, only follower who stood on high state position got them exclusively, so his bonus system won the heart and mind of assistants but could not strengthen his army.


In those days, there were only few people who had concepts, the economy and the business, and almost people treated something as trades by barter. you can not believe these domestic affairs in Japan but these things were actually done in 16th century, Japan.

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