What Did Samurai Do When There Were No More Wars?

Imagine being born a samurai, with two swords at your hip, into a Japan that hasn't fought a war in almost 200 years. So what do you actually do all day? In this video you live the life of a real low-ranking samurai of the long Edo peace: a fixed rice salary that never grows, years of waiting for a job that never comes, secret side hustles, debts to rice brokers, street fights in the pleasure quarter, and a cage built by your own family. Along the way you'll find out how Japan kept hundreds of thousands of armed, bored warriors from rebelling for 250 years, and what became of the most useless samurai in Edo. Chapters: 0:00 A Warrior Born Into Peace 1:39 How Peace Broke the Samurai 3:32 The Boy With a Rock 5:54 Kicked Out of School 7:59 Running Away at 14 10:36 Waiting for a Job That Never Came 12:19 Side Hustles of Broke Samurai 14:04 The Secret of 250 Years of Peace 15:25 Street Fights in Edo 16:21 The Cage in the Garden 17:25 The Real Samurai Behind This Story 18:32 What Peace Did to the Samurai If you like stepping into the shoes of ordinary people from the past, subscribe for more. #samurai #japanesehistory #edoperiod