How Bushido Was Invented and Weaponized

Bushidō was never ancient. This episode examines how the so-called warrior code was constructed — first by Tokugawa scholars justifying a class with nothing left to fight, then by Meiji statesmen who needed a conscript army willing to die, and finally by imperial propagandists who turned surrender itself into a moral crime. The samurai code that sent men to their deaths in 1945 was largely invented in 1899.