Believe it or not, but initially a samurai was not a soldier but a public servant. Somewhere in the seventh century Japanese emperor Tenji introduced new reforms that divided imperial bureaucrats into twelve ranks. The first rank belonged to the highest emperor’s adviser. Those of sixth rank and below were referred to as “samurai” and dealt with day-to-day affairs. Although these samurai were civilian public servants, the name has been derived from this term. Military men, however, would not be called samurai for many more centuries.

In early ninth century emperor Kammu was trying to conquer the aboriginal people of Japan who lived in the northern part of the country. His armies could not defeat them, so he had to conduct a military reform and introduced a new military title - shogun, which is equivalent to English word general. Since that time emperor started relying more on powerful regional clans because he needed their help to conquer aborigines. The warriors of the clans were skilled in mounted combat and archery and they became the base of emperor’s reformed army.

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