This Internet is such a wonderful teaching device. Everyday my knowledge expands thanks to things I uncover on my own but even more so from that small band of military brothers who daily drop tidbits into my mailbox. Such is how I first learned of the history of the Sword Hunts, a series of repeated transgressions in Japanese history that served to keep that nation in a state of feudalism until the 19th Century. The Sword Hunts were a despicable series of mass disarmaments of the people in feudal Japan, performed for precisely the purpose of eliminating them as a threat to tyranny. The most powerful of the Japanese lords knew well that an armed peasantry presented a constant threat in a feudal society where order and good discipline were to be the province of the Samurai or warrior class, who roughly equate to a much more savage version of medieval, European knights. While Teutonic knights, Knights Templars and others of the European knights were frequently indiscriminate in their...(Read Full Post)