hatamoto?

[Tenchimuyo]

Can anybody explain to me what a hatamoto is? I've seen it in the "swords of samurai" but I don't understand it's meaning and it's position.

[Anssi Hakkinen]

"Hatamoto" is Japanese (surprise surprise) and literally means "under the banner." As far as STW is concerned, the hatamoto form the daimyô's highest ranking retainers and his bodyguard, but the hatamoto existed as a separate class only after Ieyasu had unified Japan (= in the Edo period).

The hatamoto were specifically defined in the Tokugawa feudal hierarchy as "samurai with incomes between 100 and 10,000 koku". Housemen (go-kenin, your average samurai warriors) had incomes of less than 100 koku per year, while those who earned more than 10,000 from their fiefs each year were full daimyô. Strictly speaking, the word hatamoto applied only to those samurai who were *directly* vassals to the shôgun (rather than to the various daimyô). In times of an emergency, the hatamoto were required to assemble the go-kenin in their area, arm them, and then report their "private armies" to the shôgun's army.

As an edit-in note, a koku is in reality a much smaller amount of money than it is in STW.

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"If you start a fight, you must win it. Fighting, however, is not your objective. The most important thing is to win without fighting."
- Risuke Otake Sensei

[This message has been edited by Anssi Hakkinen (edited 12-24-2000).]

[Tenchimuyo]

Thanks for the info! And merry christmas