With the empire more or less stable, particularly after the conquest of the indigenous Ainu in the 9th century, Japan’s emperors began to devote more time to leisure and scholarly pursuits and less time to government. Important court posts were dominated by the influential Fujiwara family. Out in the provinces, a new power was on the rise: the samurai, or warrior class, readily turned to arms to defend its autonomy, and began to muscle in on the capital, Heian (modern-day Kyoto). The Taira clan briefly eclipsed the Fujiwara, and were ousted in turn by the Minamoto family in 1185. After assuming the rank of shōgun (military leader), Minamoto Yoritomo set up his HQ in Kamakura, while the emperor remained the nominal ruler in Kyoto. This was the beginning of a long period of feudal rule by successive military rulers which lingered until imperial power was restored in 1868.

The feudal centuries can be clunkily split into five main periods. The Kamakura Period (1185-1333) saw several invasion attempts by Kublai Khan’s Mongol armies. Japan managed to stave them off, but a weakened leadership lost the support of the samurai. Emperor Go-Daigo presided over the beginning of the Muromachi Period (1333-1576), until a revolt masterminded by the disgruntled warrior Ashikaga Takauji saw him flee to the hills. Ashikaga and his descendants ruled with gradually diminishing efficiency and Japan slipped into civil war and chaos. The various factions were pacified and unified during the Momoyama Period (1576-1600) by Oda Nobunaga and his successor Toyotomi Hideyoshi. The quick spread of Christianity during the Christian Century (1543-1640) was tolerated at first, then ferociously quashed as the interloping religion came to be seen as a threat. During the Tokugawa Period (1600-1867), Tokugawa Ieyasu defeated Hideyoshi’s young heir and set up his headquarters at Edo (now Tokyo). The emperor continued to exercise purely nominal authority in Kyoto while the Tokugawa family led Japan into a period of national seclusion. Japanese were forbidden to travel overseas or to trade abroad and foreigners were placed under strict supervision. The rigid emphasis of these times on submitting unquestioningly to rules of obedience and loyalty has lasted, some would say, to the present day.

Modern History
By the turn of the 19th century, the Tokugawa government was stagnant and corrupt. Foreign ships started to probe Japan’s isolation with increasing insistence, and famine and poverty weakened support for the government. In 1868 the ruling shōgun, Tokugawa Yoshinobu, resigned and Emperor Meiji resumed control of state affairs, seeing Japan through a crash course in Westernisation and industrialisation. In 1889 Japan created a Western-style constitution, the tenets of which seeped into national consciousness along with a swing back to traditional values. Japan’s growing confidence was demonstrated by the ease with which it trounced China in the Sino-Japanese War (1894-5) and Russia in the Russo-Japanese War (1904-5). Under Meiji’s son, Yoshihito, Japan sided with the Allies in WWI. Rather than become heavily involved in the conflict, however, Japan took the opportunity, through shipping and trade, to expand its economy at top speed. Emperor Hirohito ascended to the throne in 1926. A rising tide of nationalism was quickened by the world economic depression that began in 1930. Popular unrest led to a strong increase in the power of the militarists: Japan invaded Manchuria in 1931 and entered into full-scale hostilities against China in 1937.

Japan signed a tripartite pact with Germany and Italy in 1940 and, when diplomatic attempts to gain US neutrality failed, the Japanese launched themselves into WWII with a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941. At first Japan scored rapid successes, pushing its battle fronts across to India, down to the fringes of Australia and out into the mid-Pacific. The Battle of Midway opened the US counterattack, puncturing Japanese naval superiority and turning the tide of war against