Editing Samurai (section)

== Ashigaru ==
[[image:Ashigaru.jpg|thumb|250px|right|Ashigaru: Because even a Honorable Samurai Warrior needs a helping hand now and again]]
As previously mentioned the Samurai were not alone during their day, backing them up would be Ashigaru. The practice began with Samurai bringing along a few peasants (either volunteers or conscripted levies) with some basic weapons (usually Yari) to help them out on and off the battlefield as infantry and offering them a cut of the loot and the prospects of promotion in society as incentives. As time went on and wars became more common, this practice continued and was gradually refined and samurai started to always bring some peasant foot soldiers with them or otherwise risk losing simply by getting overwhelmed with numbers because their opponent did bring foot soldiers with them. Since the various clans of japan were in close proximity to each other some degree of military training became the norm for many peasants while organization improved, while Samurai began investing in armor and better weapons for their soldiers, as well as better organization and training. 

By the 1500s, the Ashigaru had truly emerged, not solely as peasant soldiers serving their lord but also as mercenaries lacking any alliegance besides money, as one and half century of war meant that casualties need to be replaced and thus Samurai couldn't really just rely only on their own people. By this point in time, Ashigaru generally had some metal torso armor and a helmet and had been refined into professional soldiers that could be employed as pikemen and musketeers that, while not as good at fighting as Samurai were still capable of holding the line pretty damn well. Many Samurai clans had their start with an Ashigaru who managed to impress his superiors on the battlefield (most famous such example being Toyotomi Hideyoshi, who finished Oda Nobunaga's campaign to unify Japan after he died and ruled over all of Japan in the 1590s) and eventually there was a hazy grey area between well armed ashigaru and poor samurai, with the only real difference being that a samurai was generally better trained. When the Tokugawa Shogunate was established the Ashigaru military class was abolished with the remaining Ashigaru either being integrated into the samurai class or demobilized and sent back to the fields to be farmers.