A Grim Gaze into History

Every era wears its own mask. The Sengoku period — the time of civil war in Japan, which flooded the country with an ocean of blood — today wears the mask of glory. We try to understand it through tales of strategy, loyalty, and bravery. And there is nothing wrong with that — human imagination needs heroes, just as the heart needs a rhythm. There is nothing wrong with it, as long as we remain aware that it is merely a pact, that real war is something else. That beneath the myths of honor lay nights spent in ditches, children fed with fear, and bodies no one wished to bury. Sengoku was not merely a time of rivalry between warlords — it was a period of complete disintegration, in which armies preyed on their own society, and the life of a common person held less value than an old, rusty yari. Let us tell the story of Sengoku once more — but a little differently this time.

Today’s text is not about Tokugawa Ieyasu, does not celebrate Oda Nobunaga, and does not analyze epic battles. It speaks of women given away as spoils of war, and of children sold to Portuguese traders, shipped off to Macau and India. Of peasants conscripted into armies, whose weapons were sharpened hoes, and whose “wages” were the right to rape. Of orphans who were denied the right to tears — for tears drew attention, and attention meant death. Of mothers who hid their children in pits beneath the floor, then punished them more harshly than war itself for making noise. Of fathers who beat their sons as they themselves had been beaten — not out of cruelty, but from the conviction that it had to be that way. It is also a story of temples turned into fortresses, of diviners feeding on fear, of monks who carried prayers in one hand and a naginata in the other.

This is not about condemnation or judgment of history. History is what it is — and it has been like this everywhere, not only in Japan. This is rather about awareness. About understanding that as communities, we sometimes unconsciously agree on which fragments of memory to highlight, and which to remain silent about. This need not be a bad thing. It might even be necessary. As long as we do not forget that it is a choice — not the whole truth. That the new order — in Japan’s case, the Tokugawa bakufu, the peace of the Edo period — was built not only on reforms, but also on silence. Silence about what came before. About orphans with no graves. About women with no voice. About the fact that an entire society could live for generations believing that human life was worthless. And though today, during festivals dedicated to great warlords, we enjoy colorful spectacles, it is worth remembering — not with pathos, but with honesty — that behind this tale, there is another. One less comfortable. But more true.

What Was the Sengoku Period?

The term sengoku jidai (戦国時代) literally means “the Warring States period” — and though it sounds like the title of a heroic epic, in reality it conceals a century and a half of merciless chaos, blood, betrayal, and famine. The term was borrowed from Chinese historiography, where it referred to a similar era of rival states before China’s unification under the Qin dynasty. In Japan, it denotes the period from the mid-15th to the early 17th century, when the country was engulfed in brutal civil war — though not a single war, but dozens of overlapping conflicts, battles, and sieges, stretched across time and space like a dense web of violence.

The genesis of this era lay in the collapse of the existing order. In 1467, the Ōnin War broke out — seemingly a local dispute over succession among the aristocracy, but it quickly spiraled into a vortex of violence that consumed Kyoto and spread to the provinces. Ashikaga Yoshimasa, the then shōgun, was unable to maintain control, and the warrior families (buke) took advantage of the central government’s weakness to pursue their own ambitions. The Ashikaga shogunate continued to exist on paper until 1573, but in reality had already lost all influence over the provincial lords — daimyō — who began to treat their domains as independent states. And in practice — many of them were independent states at the time.

As a result of this anarchy, Japan was fragmented into dozens, even hundreds of competing clans, each waging war for land, resources, people, and prestige. There was no single frontline — rather, there were hundreds of small and large battles, sieges, betrayals of allies, and massacres of civilians. From the southern reaches of Hokkaidō (then called Ezo) to southern Kyushu, the islands drowned in an unending war, waged by people who often were allies yesterday and enemies today.

Years passed, and Japan seemed to be sinking ever deeper into a sea of blood. There was no institution capable of imposing peace. No neutral arbiter. Law had ceased to function, courts had collapsed, the shōgun’s government was a joke, and the emperor — well, the emperor had long ceased to hold any significance beyond the ceremonial. Every feudal lord became the law in his own domain, deciding who was allowed to live and who must die. This was not an era of chivalric wars, but something far more brutal: a time of total collapse of political and moral community.

The conventional end of the period is usually marked by the year 1600 — the Battle of Sekigahara, in which Tokugawa Ieyasu defeated the loyalist army of the Toyotomi clan and paved his way to the title of shōgun. Some historians, however, point to the year 1615, when Tokugawa forces captured Osaka Castle and definitively destroyed the remnants of Toyotomi power. Only then was Japan reunified — though not under the old rules, but entirely new ones: under the rule of the Tokugawa military regime — bakufu — which for the next 250 years enforced peace, isolation, and strict social control (more on that here: What to Do with a Society of Samurai Who Only Know War and Death in Times of Peace? - The Clever Ideas of the Tokugawa Shoguns).

Unlike the American Civil War, which became the foundation of modern American identity and a moral narrative of freedom, the Sengoku period in Japan has no single, unified interpretation. It is not unequivocally regarded as a time of glory or collapse. Rather, it is a torn, ambivalent memory of an age that produced heroes as well as criminals; that created a new order, but birthed it from monstrous anarchy. Sengoku cannot be understood without understanding the suffering of those never honored with monuments — nameless peasants, women sold into slavery, children who never reached adulthood. For them, it was not a time of glory.

Romanticizing the Sengoku Period in Japanese and Western Culture

Although the Sengoku period was historically a time of decay, violence, and social suffering, it is today often portrayed in a completely different light — both in Japan and the West. What was chaos and disaster for millions of people has been transformed into a myth of heroism, honor, and aesthetic beauty. Instead of burned villages and the cries of fleeing civilians, we see a samurai with a pure soul, standing proudly in the cherry blossom rain, a bloodied sword in hand.

Modern pop culture has significantly contributed to this romanticization. Akira Kurosawa’s films, such as Seven Samurai or Kagemusha, established the archetype of the ideal warrior — loyal, humble, poetically solitary. Video games, anime, and historical dramas often follow the same path: the samurai is noble, armed with a code, fighting not for gain but for ideals. Meanwhile, contemporary sources from the era — Portuguese Jesuit letters, battle chronicles, or the accounts of Buddhist monks — paint a far less romantic picture: it was a war fought by people. Real people. Moreover, it was primarily a war of raids, full of betrayal, field-burning, kidnapping of women, mass looting, and unpunished killings. In that sense, it resembled medieval wars anywhere else — in France, Poland, or China.

A particular role in the mythologization of this period is played by the so-called “samurai myth” — the image of the warrior as a paragon of honor and inner purity. And though this did not arise from nothing, and samurai training — from combat to poetry to philosophy — was indeed extensive, we must remember that in reality, a significant portion of the armies consisted not of trained warriors, but of peasants forcibly conscripted into the ranks or made to carry supplies. Even higher-ranking samurai did not refrain from betrayal, plunder, or murder (despite their education, they were still human). Battles were often fought not for grand ideas, but for control over a granary, a water source, or a grain market (the very definition of war in any latitude). Reality wrote its own scripts.

Even the very aesthetics of Sengoku warfare have been idealized. Modern battle reenactments, museums with polished armor, and colorful festivals create the impression that war was a stylish ceremony. Clan banners, red-lacquered armor, tea ceremonies before battles — all of these, of course, did exist, but they were not the norm. Reality was mud beneath Kyoto, wounds stinking of gangrene, dismembered bodies in rice fields, and terror in the eyes of women whose village had just been raided.

Finally — collective memory plays a key role. In many places in Japan, the Sengoku period is remembered through festivals, battle reenactments, local museums, and traditional craft schools. This is a natural process of cultivating local and national identity — but it sometimes transforms into myth-making. The people of Aizuwakamatsu, celebrating the heroic defense of Tsuruga Castle, do not always think of the hunger and mass death of civilians that accompanied the siege.

The romanticization of the Sengoku era is not only a result of pop culture — it is also a psychological defense mechanism of collective memory. It is easier to celebrate than to mourn. Easier to tell a story of courage than to acknowledge national trauma. But to truly understand this time, one must look beneath the surface of the legend. Into the mud, not the lacquer. I do not write this to criticize myth-making, celebration, or the telling of epic tales. No, those are necessary things, and I myself enjoy returning to them. But it is important — that while we celebrate, we always remember, holding somewhere in the back of our minds a more truthful image of reality. I believe that can only enrich us. Returning to the topic…

The Collapse of Society – Daily Life Without the Protection of the State

While the powerful fought for provinces, peasants fought for survival. During the Sengoku period — devoid of central authority, with no common law, no standing army — Japan fell not only into armed conflict, but into profound social collapse. The authority of the Ashikaga shogunate dissolved, and with it disappeared any guarantee of safety. In the provinces, the rule was simple: the stronger takes all.

The most vulnerable group were the peasants — who made up about 80% of the population. They lived in small villages, often fortified with fences made of sharp stakes or low earthen embankments, which offered no real protection against raiding horsemen. Those who had nothing to defend themselves with became easy prey for bands: groups of masterless samurai (rōnin, though in Sengoku this meant something quite different than it would later in Edo), runaway mercenaries, and sometimes even starving peasants who had rejected the role of victim. Pillaging, rape, the kidnapping of women and children — this was daily life, not the exception.

The absence of state protection meant that the force maintaining order in the countryside were local warlords — most often lower vassals of the daimyō, or rebellious samurai who formed their own private armies. It was not uncommon for a village to change hands several times in a single year — and with the new emblem on the banner came new duties for the peasants, new taxes, new quotas of rice to surrender. Even in the midst of war, peasants were burdened with new obligations — from supplying horses, to the requisitioning of food, to forced labor in building fortifications.

Some villages chose to self-organize and resist — grassroots communities known as ikki (more on that here: Ikkō-ikki: Buddhist Monks Build Fortresses and Lead Peasants to War Against the Warlords of Sengoku Japan) emerged, in which peasants, monks, merchants, and rebel samurai collectively defended themselves against feudal terror. The most famous example was the Ikkō-ikki League, supported by radical Buddhist monks from the Jōdo Shinshū sect. In their strongholds, such as Ishiyama Hongan-ji, they managed for decades to create autonomous enclaves where relative order prevailed. But even these bastions eventually fell under siege by Nobunaga, and their inhabitants faced massacres and confiscations.

For women, the Sengoku period meant constant danger. In many regions of Japan, mass kidnappings were recorded — women were taken to military camps as concubines, servants, or slaves, sometimes sold to other provinces. The notion of honor did not protect women of the common class — on the contrary, they were often treated as spoils. Children in that time knew no childhood — from a young age they were taught survival, fieldwork, and how to hide during raids. Older children were conscripted into auxiliary military units or forced to carry combat equipment.

Artisans and merchants, though sometimes somewhat safer within fortified towns, also lived in constant risk. Entire settlements of potters, blacksmiths, or weavers were relocated from one domain to another when military power shifted. Rulers treated skilled craftsmen as strategic property — especially makers of armor, weapons, arrows, and gunpowder. Some of them enjoyed relative prosperity — but only as long as their lord remained in power. After his fall — homes were burned, people enslaved, settlements erased from the map.

The landscape of Japan during the Sengoku period was full of refugees. Burning rice fields, destroyed irrigation channels, roads filled with people carrying bundles — this was not the romantic backdrop of an epic battle, but the reality of tens of thousands of families who had to flee their homes. Some settled in valleys hidden in the mountains, creating temporary camps; others tried to survive as wandering laborers or beggars.

With the fall of central authority, the old social structures collapsed. Buddhist temples, once local centers of education, worship, and aid, often became either bastions of resistance or targets of destruction. The authority of shogunate or imperial court officials virtually ceased to exist outside Kyoto. Even local administration broke down — former functions were taken over by military governors and the guards of local lords. Documents, land records, tax ledgers — disappeared in flames, and with them the rights and identities of people.

The Sengoku period was not only a time of war — it was a time when Japan lived for a century and a half without a state apparatus, in a condition of social disintegration. For most people, the concept of a “homeland” did not exist — there was only the kuni (province), sometimes only the mura (village). And there was no one who governed over it all. Each day was a fight for life — and not necessarily with a sword in hand.

Human Trafficking and Sexual Slavery

The Untold Despair of a Wartime Era

In the shadow of battles, strategies, and the names of great warlords, another life unfolded — silent, unspoken — during the Sengoku period: the life of bodies put up for sale. In a world without law or protection, where the existence of an ordinary person held no more value than a sack of rice, the body of a woman or child became merchandise — the easiest war trophy to seize.

In the letters of Portuguese missionaries such as Luís Fróis, there are accounts of the trade in human lives — hundreds, perhaps thousands of children and women were sold by Japanese intermediaries to European merchants. They ended up in Portuguese colonies in Macau, Goa, Malacca, or even on plantations in Brazil. Daughters of poor families, girls kidnapped during village raids, prisoners of war — all could be sold. The price? Sometimes a few coins, sometimes a sack of gunpowder, sometimes a long sword.

This practice also had its local face. In port cities such as Nagasaki, as well as in castle towns and trade centers, there existed entire networks of brokers offering “servants,” “companions,” “girls” — all in quotation marks, for behind these euphemisms lay the brutal reality of sexual enslavement. They were purchased as domestic slaves, for pleasure houses, for the harems of powerful daimyō. Men too were enslaved, though more often as laborers for fortification work, weapon transport, or backbreaking agricultural labor.

Most European missionaries turned a blind eye to the practice, treating it as a “lesser evil” in light of the greater mission of converting souls. Others — like Fróis himself — wrote with indignation that slaves were bought and baptized only to be mercilessly sent across the seas.

For Japanese nobles, the purchase of a “servant” was often a matter of prestige, a sign of power — all the more so if she was a woman from the defeated enemy’s lineage. Rape was treated as an inseparable part of war — a reward, not a crime. The kidnapping of women also served strategic purposes: forced into marriage or concubinage, they could eventually contribute to political alliances. Stories such as those of the wives of Oda Nobunaga, Tokugawa Ieyasu, or Toyotomi Hideyoshi are well known — but hundreds, thousands of women, whose names were never recorded, endured the same brutal logic.

The topic of slavery during the Sengoku period remains in the shadows, both in Japanese historiography and in popular culture. In films and series, war appears like a stage play — full of honorable clashes, elegance, and symbolism. Yet at the same time, women were shipped away in boxes, boys tied with ropes and dragged into the mountains, and those who survived had only one thing left: to work in silence. Such is history — not simply memory, but the selection of what we choose to remember.

Armies of the Impoverished – Who Truly Fought in the Wars of Sengoku?

In period paintings, on byōbu screens, and in Kurosawa’s films, we see armed samurai in proud stances, their gleaming helmets with crescent moons, their armor adorned with family crests. But that is only the surface. Beneath the lacquered plates and the legend of bushidō (which, in truth, only acquired its name after Sengoku had ended) was the real army of the Sengoku era: cold, dirty, exhausted people without names. Peasants with wooden spears, boys with rice knives at their sides, old men carrying heavy sacks of rice behind the troops. These were the majority of the army.

At their peak, the largest Sengoku armies counted as many as 30,000–50,000 men. But samurai, in the full sense of the word, made up perhaps 5–10% of those numbers. The rest were a general levy: peasants mobilized by their local daimyō, craftsmen pulled from their workshops, sons of poor families, exiles, vagabonds, former criminals. They were forced to fight, conscripted under threat of death, or joined voluntarily — out of desperation, the desire for loot, or the need to survive. Sometimes, simply, there was nowhere else to run.

Their armament? Makeshift and inconsistent. Most wore only rough hemp clothing and a simple bamboo chest guard. Weapons were just as varied: yari (spears) with iron tips, primitive naginata, old bows, sometimes only a hoe or a long stick. Only a few had the chance to wield a sword — the tachi (a longer katana) was the attribute of the upper class. From the mid-16th century onward, cheap, mass-produced teppō — matchlock arquebuses imported from Portugal — became more common. But not everyone knew how to use them. Often, they were handed to untrained peasants who only knew which direction to point — not how to reload or maintain them.

Armies were often accompanied by women and children. Not always as fighters — though such cases did occur — but as porters, cooks, caretakers of the wounded, or scavengers of loot. Sometimes they were hostages, sometimes they were simply there because they had nowhere else to go. After a battle, a woman could be given away as a reward, and a child — sold. Sengoku did not distinguish “civilians” in our modern sense. If you followed the army — you were part of it.

There was no pay in the classical sense. In many cases, the only reward for taking part in a battle was the opportunity to plunder. Burned villages, abandoned homes, the bodies of the fallen — everything was “up for grabs.” People looted corpses, stripped discarded armor, broke pottery in search of food. It happened that units starved and survived on tree bark — even carrion. Some sources mention cases of cannibalism, especially during sieges.

And what of those who refused to fight? At best, they were left alone — at worst: hanged, killed as cowards, or sold to human traffickers. Prisoners were often used as human shields in subsequent battles or forcibly conscripted into new armies. They changed allegiances not because they betrayed, but because their lives had no color at all.

Religion, Magic, and Hope – Spirituality in a Time of Chaos

In a world where political authority had collapsed and life had lost all semblance of predictable order, spirituality became the final refuge. For the people of the Sengoku period, religion was not a matter of philosophical speculation — it was a tool for survival, a means of calming the soul in a time when the body could perish at any hour of day or night.

Amidism, or the Pure Land school (Jōdo-shū and Jōdo Shinshū), gained particular significance. Its simple yet deeply consoling message — that every person, regardless of sin or origin, could be reborn in Amida’s paradise through the mere invocation of his name — brought hope to masses of peasants and refugees. Namu Amida Butsu — six syllables whispered, chanted, and cried out — became a mantra for terrified people gathering in Buddhist temples, which became both sanctuaries and fortresses (more on militant Buddhism here: The Monk with the Naginata: The Martial Face of Buddhism in Kamakura Japan).

From these temples also arose a more direct religious response to the chaos — sōhei, warrior monks. The military order of Enryaku-ji on Mount Hiei and the armed communities linked to Hongan-ji in Osaka organized their own armies, defending both the faith and the communities of believers. These were not monks devoted solely to contemplation — many wore armor, wielded bows and naginata, participated in sieges and political alliances. In the case of Hongan-ji, these forces were strong enough to hold off Oda Nobunaga himself, who tried for ten years without success to break their resistance.

At the same time, on the level of everyday life, magic and religion blended seamlessly. Talismans (omamori), protective rituals performed by rural Shintō priests and Buddhist monks, petitions to the kami — deities of water, rice, fire — were all internalized within the consciousness of ordinary people. It was believed that the shape of a child’s skull could reveal their future, that evil spirits nested in illness, that the souls of fallen samurai roamed through ruins at night. Epidemics were explained by the presence of vengeful onryō, and a comet in the sky was seen as a sign of the era’s imminent end. We know these patterns all too well from our own history.

Superstitions, prayers, talismans, warriors from monasteries, and visitors from Portugal — all wove together into the complex spiritual fabric of civil war Japan. A world coming undone tried to enchant, appease, and heal itself anew — whether with the words of prayer or the blade of a monk’s naginata.

Children of War – A Generation Raised in Fear

In an era when not a single day passed without violence, children had no right to childhood. Their crying ceased quickly — not because they were comforted, but because crying drew the attention of the wrong people. In the time of civil war, when no Japanese generation knew what it meant to grow up in stability, children were both victims and instruments of chaos.

In the charred villages left behind after military raids, children were found curled beneath scorched futon. Others wandered the roads like stray dogs — orphans of peasant families massacred for disobedience to a local daimyō. In a world where survival depended on strength and loyalty, children became currency — sold as servants, as sexual slaves, as future soldiers. Portuguese and Japanese sources speak plainly of children from Kyūshū being shipped to Macau, Goa, and Europe (European civilization has always had a taste for slaves from distant lands).

Among samurai and their retainers, children were not shielded from brutality — they were shaped by it. Three-year-olds were taught to hold a bokken, six-year-olds practiced simple kata, and eight-year-olds could disassemble and reassemble a tanegashima. Childhood was training. Not for personal development, but for service — to the clan, the lord, the war. A child who could not remain silent or fight had no future. Boys were forced to take part in massacres, girls — to serve the army. Source documents from Echizen and Mino provinces record instances where children were used to carry ammunition, retrieve the wounded from battlefields, or clean bloodied swords.

At home — if such homes even existed — there waited not love, but fear. Domestic violence was an endemic reality — not in a pathological sense, but a systemic one. A father raised by beatings passed the same onto his son — not out of anger, but out of conviction. A mother who hid her child from thugs or a band of armed men might then punish them severely for making noise. The fear never went away — it became a rule of life.

In a world where each day could be the last, education was a luxury available only to the children of clergy or wealthy merchant families in cities like Sakai, Kyōto, or Nara. For the rest, knowledge was a curse — it was better not to know the price of life, better not to remember what “home” meant.

Many who survived entered adulthood already wounded — not necessarily physically, but emotionally. Their world knew no carefree moments. Instead of toys — stones. Instead of games — rat hunts. Instead of bedtime stories — the groans of the wounded.

This generation became the foundation of a new Japan: the one unified by the Tokugawa. But in their hearts they carried Sengoku — not as a romantic tale, but as a cold, relentless wound that could not be dressed.

The End of the Era – What Did Tokugawa’s Victory Truly Bring?

In the year 1600, when the dust from the Battle of Sekigahara settled over the blood-soaked fields of Mino province, something more began than just a new chapter in the chronicles of war. Tokugawa Ieyasu’s victory was not merely an epic success — it was a transformation. Fire was replaced with the chill of marble. The chaotic fury of Sengoku gave way to the iron structure of the Edo period.

Peace came — but not freedom. The ordering of the country meant the ordering of its people as well. The nobility was strictly stratified, peasants were tied to the land, and samurai were transformed into bureaucrats. The new order was built not only on reforms — but also on silence. Silence about what had come before.

The Tokugawa bakufu began a deliberate process of shaping memory — reinterpreting Sengoku as an age of heroism, honor, and national strength. The legends of Nobunaga, Hideyoshi, and Ieyasu were woven into a tri-colored tale of unification. The rough, uncomfortable truth about burned villages, sold children, peasants dying anonymously with sticks in their hands — was hidden beneath lacquered armor and the gleam of swords.

There were no graves for the armies of the poor. No names for the children stolen by night squads. No stories for the women driven like cattle after castles fell. The history of Japan wrote its renaissance — but those who built it through their suffering were not invited onto the pages of the chronicles.

Today, when we watch parades in armor and festivals in honor of great generals, it is worth — if only for a moment — to close our eyes and recall those others — the nameless. Not to judge the past. History is what it is — and it has been the same everywhere, not only in Japan. This is rather about awareness. About understanding that as communities — sometimes unconsciously — we decide which fragments of memory to highlight and which to silence. That need not be wrong. It may even be necessary. As long as we never forget that it is a choice — not the whole truth.

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"Strong Japanese Women"

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    未開    ソビエライ

 An enthusiast of Asian culture with a deep appreciation for the diverse philosophies of the world. By education, a psychologist and philologist specializing in Korean studies. At heart, a programmer (primarily for Android) and a passionate technology enthusiast, as well as a practitioner of Zen and mono no aware. In moments of tranquility, adheres to a disciplined lifestyle, firmly believing that perseverance, continuous personal growth, and dedication to one's passions are the wisest paths in life. Author of the book "Strong Women of Japan" (>>see more)

Personal motto:

"The most powerful force in the universe is compound interest." - Albert Einstein (probably)

  Mike Soray

   (aka Michał Sobieraj)

未開    ソビエライ

 An enthusiast of Asian culture with a deep appreciation for the diverse philosophies of the world. By education, a psychologist and philologist specializing in Korean studies. At heart, a programmer (primarily for Android) and a passionate technology enthusiast, as well as a practitioner of Zen and mono no aware. In moments of tranquility, adheres to a disciplined lifestyle, firmly believing that perseverance, continuous personal growth, and dedication to one's passions are the wisest paths in life. Author of the book "Strong Women of Japan" (>>see more)

Personal motto:

"The most powerful force in the universe is compound interest." - Albert Einstein (probably)

Mike Soray

(aka Michał Sobieraj)

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