Tag: samurai

While [Western] equestrians mount their horses from the left side, the samurai always mounted a horse from the right side. One of the reasons being that the sword, in this case the tachi, was worn slung on the left, and while wearing armour, the shorter wakazashi companion sword was tied firmly into the obi sash to the left. Mounting from the left risks catching or hitting the tsukagashira sword handle end caps on the saddle. Mounting from the right keeps one’s hips and shoulders pointing in the same direction as the tsukagashira on one’s wakazashi or daisho (paired katana and wakazashi).

— The Samurai Castle Master, Chapter 2

Ankokuji Eikei…had his hiding-place revealed by a Ronin, who bore him a grudge for turning his former master out of his fief…. How gratified [Tokugawa Ieyasu] was may be gathered from his presenting ten pieces of gold to the Ronin, who at first emphatically refused to take it, declaring that his motive was only the very proper one of revenge, and that he did not wish to profit otherwise. But Ieyasu would not take a refusal, and so he received this quite large sum, but distributed it among the people of his village in true recluse style.

— Shogun, Chapter 23

My previous post dug out a conversion rate of 25 gold pieces (GP) for one koku. That post focused upon the minimum income of a single samurai. As we have a historical record of the kokudaka (tax assessment of the entire country), I can expand my conversion to the daimyō—the landholding baronial class of pre-modern Japan. Under the kokudaka:

• The minimum annual revenue needed to be considered a daimyō was 10,000 koku. So 250,000 GP in agricultural production, annually.
• Many daimyō had revenue in excess of 100,000 koku. 2.5 million GP.
• The future Shōgun, Tokugawa Ieyasu, was daimyō of the eight provinces of the Kanto plain which produced an annual revenue of 2.5 million koku. 62.5 million GP.
• Out of a (1598) national total of just under 19 million koku. That is 475 million GP! Per year!
• Most of that was eaten, of course; Japan’s population at the time was somewhere around 19 million.

It was the 1980 television miniseries Shōgun that introduced me to the concept of koku as a measure of wealth in pre-modern Japan. I purchased the original AD&D Oriental Adventures rulebook when it came out in 1985. I only ever used it for inspiration, though. That never included using koku for player character income/wealth.

It was the 2024 streaming miniseries Shōgun that finally got me curious enough about koku to do the research. My questions were:

1. How many koku of income did a common samurai need to live?
2. How was it distributed to him?
3. What was one koku worth in D&D coinage?

The answers I found:

1. The Samurai Archives Wiki project’s page for koku states a samurai’s annual expenses “was around 1.8” koku. That does not count the one koku he eats, so it takes almost 3 koku to basically live.
2. That same page states “one-quarter of the annual stipend was paid in spring, one-quarter in summer, and the remaining one-half in the winter.”
3. The Oriental Adventures rulebook has two tables in its “Money & Equipment” chapter. The first sets one koku worth 5 ch’ien. The second sets one ch’ien equal to 5 gold pieces (GP). So one koku is worth 25 GP.

So the wage of a “historical” samurai in D&D would be about 70 GP per year. Almost 6 GP per month.

ADDENDUM: 6 GP per month is what the AD&D Dungeon Masters Guide lists as the wage for a mercenary heavy cavalryman or mounted archer. So internally consistent between the rulebooks.

See also Fiefs Were Measured By How Much Food They Produced.

“Your fief is increased from five hundred koku to three thousand. You will have control within twenty ri.” A ri was a measure of distance that approximated one mile. “As a further token of my affection, when I return to Yedo I will send you two horses, twenty silk kimonos, one suit of armor, two swords, and enough arms to equip a further hundred samurai which you will recruit. When war comes you will immediately join my personal staff as a hatamoto.” Yabu was feeling expansive: a hatamoto was a special personal retainer of a daimyo who had the right of access to his lord and could wear swords in the presence of his lord….

— Shōgun, Chapter 6

Emphasis mine.