What the ending?

Answer 1

Although I'm Japanese-American, I am a little sketchy on Japanese history. What I do know is that it started once Japan was unified under one shogun. Prior to this unification, all samurai had a daimyo, or lord. There were may daimyo in pre-unified Japan. Once unified, however, the role of the warrior was lessened and samurai were not as useful. Interestingly, this was about the time that bushido, or the way of the warrior, first emerged and was formalized. Bushido teaches, among other virtues, that the samurai must serve his lord to the death and death in service of one's lord is the greatest honor and samurai could experience. In pre-unified Japan, when all the fighting was occuring, this concept did not exist. Samurai frequently shifted their loyaties.

Some historians attribute the emergence of bushido in unified Japan as the samurai trying to justify their existence in a now peaceful Japan.

Much later, around the 19th century, a US naval officer, Commodore Perry, forced Japan to open it previous closed society to trade. It was at this time that the leaders of Japan realized that the "old" samurai ways would not be able to compete militarily with Western weaponry. There was a movement to adopt Western technology, which eventually lead to the illegalization of samurai. Of course, this policy wasn't very popular with some old school samurai, who fought the modernization movement. Eventually, however, techonology won. Samurai lost. In modern day Japan, remnants of the samurai culture still remain. Modern Japanese businessmen still find samurai technique applicable to forming corporate strategy and will study writings of past samurai for business enlightenment. Modern day Japanese athletes do the same. In a way, the samurai may be gone, but their influence on methods of handling competition and conflict are alive and well in Japan.

so it was the age of guns that ended the age of the samurai