Sarah Paine

And I'm gonna start, here's my first piece of the Tokugawa literature.

Yamamoto Tsunetomo's the Hagakure that he wrote in the early 18th century.

It translates variously as hidden leaves, hidden by the leaves.

And in it, he is describing, I'm going to read you some short passages from it all.

What was he?

He was a retainer for a daimyo, a feudal lord in Japan.

He hadn't actually done any fighting, even though he's writing all about it.

So if you don't do, what do you do?

You publish.

And I will tell you what the man had to say.

So here we go.

One of the first things is this preoccupation with death.

And here's Yamamoto.

The way of the samurai is imagining the most sightly way of dying.

Merit lies more in dying for one's master than in striking down the enemy.

The way of the samurai is found in death.

It is not necessary to gain one's aim, but if you live on without achieving it, it's cowardice.

However, if you don't gain your aim and die, that's okay.

This is really different from Clausewitz, where it's all about achieving the policy objective.

It's not about how the soldier's leading his life.