If this might be to hard to answer because accounts may vary a great deal, could you give examples from maybe one or more famous battles and time periods.
There's no correct answer because (and you likely already know this):
With that out of the way, let's talk composition:
Part 1-Late Sengoku
TL;DR: Varies wildly due to no standardization and incomplete sources. Anywhere between 1/15 and 1/2, usually between 1/6 and 1/3
Let’s start out with the 1571 “Arrival Record” of the Hōjō. According to the research done by Professor Shimoyama Haruhisa, it’s recorded that Okamoto Hachirōzaemon arrived with:
So from that we get 1 horse samurai (Okamoto), 4 foot samurai, and 10 non-samurai of which 8 are stated as ashigaru. This means 1/3 of this group are samurai. There, done. Not. A few things stand out. 1) No gunners, 2) No archers, 3) No non-combatants. We know from other sources they had these. Given that, it’s very hard to say how close this group of 15 would resemble the entire army. But at least we know this group of 15 had 33.3% samurai.
Moving onto the Takeda. The Kōyō Gunkan, supposedly written by Kasuga Toratsuna but was probably written in the early Edo, describing Takeda Shingen’s army, lists a total of 9121 “Horsemen”, 884 ashigaru of the hatamoto, and 5489 ashigaru. Each “horsemen” had between 2 to 8 attendants. The Kōyō Gunkan assumes they had an average of four attendants with the whole army was about 52,000 (51,978 – interestingly the book says the grand total is 52,023, likely a calculation error as all other given numbers matches) with samurai making up about 17.5%. So in Shingen’s army at least, most men were neither samurai nor ashigaru, but military attendants of the samurai.
But throwing a wrench in this whole thing is that we have muster rolls that doesn’t match Kōyō Gunkan’s records. For instance:
Takeda Shingen’s brother Takeda Nobuzane is listed as 15 “horsemen”. We have some muster rolls, but his muster roll in 1571 lists: 3 mounted, 10 pikes, 2 bow, 5 mochiyari, 5 guns, 3 flags. So where are the 15 “horsemen”? If 15 of his 28 muster are samurai is the ratio 53.5%? Or perhaps he just didn’t bring everyone. In that case who in this muster is samurai? Mounted (10.7%)? Mounted+bow(17.9%)? Mounted+mochiyari(28.6%)? Or is it Mounted+bow+pike which is 15?
Likewise of the 8 Takeda samurai of the 1576 muster in my source:
| Samurai | Mounted | Pike | Bow | Mochiyari | Guns | Flags | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 小田切民部少輔 | 6 | 19 | 6 | 6 | 6 | 3 | 46 |
| 大日方佐渡守 | 4 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 9 | |
| 市河助一郎 | 1 | 6 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 13 |
| 大滝宮内左衛門 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 6 | |
| 嶋津左京亮 | 1 | 4 | 1 | 1 | 21 | ||
| 勝善寺 | 1 | 1 | |||||
| 玉井源右衛門尉 | 1 | 1 | 2 | ||||
| 原伝兵街 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 5 | |
| Total | 11 | 37 | 8 | 13 | 12 | 8 | 103 |
So who’s samurai here? It’s likely all 11 mounted (10.7%) are samurai simply due to cost. Considering Sir Ōhigata didn't bring any mounted men and Sir Katsu basically brought himself, some samurai must also have been counted in other weapons, but we don’t know how who and how many (except Sir Katsu, giving us a minimum of 12, or 11.7%). But wait, the 103 total doesn’t list non-combatants/semi-combatants, something we know is common in a Japanese army of the time. Were there none, or were they just not listed?
Kōyō Gunkan itself also mess us up by giving the possibility of three attendants per samurai (Total 42,857 – 21.3% samurai) and two attendants (Total 33,736 – 27.0% samurai) ^Turnbull ^assumes ^the ^last ^set ^without ^giving ^a ^justification^^Always ^^double ^^check ^^his ^^work .
Uesugi clan’s general muster in 1577 gives us 3606 yari, 317 guns, 369 flags, 567 mounted, and 650 “unarmed”, for a total of 5509. And we are faced with the same problem we had before. Mounted 10.3% is our base line. It is likely much higher than that.
According to (my crappy translation of) Akechi Mitsuhide's orders/guide to his retainers, dated 1581:
... Bring 6 men to muster for every 100 koku. Gather men at that ratio.
Between 100 and 150 koku: 1 armour, 1 horse, 1 sashimono, 1 yari
Between 150 koku and 200 koku: 1 armour, 1 horse, 1 sashimono, 2 yari
Between 200 koku and 300 koku: 1 armour, 1 horse, 2 sashimono, 2 yari
Between 300 koku and 400 koku: 1 armour, 1 horse, 3 sashimono, 3 yari, 1 flag, 1 gun
Between 400 koku and 500 koku: 1 armour, 1 horse, 4 sashimono, 4 yari, 1 flag, 1 gun
Between 500 koku and 600 koku: 2 armours, 2 horses, 5 sashimono, 5 yari, 1 flag, 2 guns
Between 600 koku and 700 koku: 2 armours, 2 horses, 6 sashimono, 6 yari, 1 flag, 3 guns
Between 700 koku and 800 koku: 3 armours, 3 horses, 7 sashimono, 7 yari, 1 flag, 3 guns
Between 800 koku and 900 koku: 4 armours, 4 horses, 8 sashimono, 8 yari, 1 flag, 4 guns
Those with 1000 koku: 5 armour, 5 horse, 10 sashimono, 10 yari, 1 flag, 5 gun. One mounted man can count for two.
What exactly is the composition here? Actually who knows. But taking the 1000 koku example, he’s supposed to bring 60 men. But only equipment for at most 20~ 25 have equipment listed. Likewise, if we take 500 koku, of the 30 men only 1012 men have equipments listed. Archers are still common in this time period, but as Akechi doesn’t mention any, we don’t know if how many of the rest of the 60, if any, are supposed to be archers. We also don’t know how many are non/semi-combatants.8.33%. On the other hand, if each samurai is someone important enough to get a sashimono, the ratio is exactly 1/6, or about 16.7%.
But we can probably assume the mounted/armoured men are “samurai” proper. At 500 koku that is 2 samurai out of 30 men. At 1000 koku 5 out of 60. Giving us 6.67
I need to use Turnbull for the next bit ^and ^I ^can’t ^find ^where ^he ^gets ^his ^numbers ^from ^because ^he ^doesn’t ^fucking ^source^^god ^^damn ^^it ^^Turnbull . Going back to the Hōjō again. Turnbull says in 1590 Ōto Nagato brought with him 75 mounted samurai, 36 foot samurai, 115 ashigarun, 26 attendants. That is 44%.
At Sekigahara supposedly Kimata Morikatsu of the Ii family had a Hatamoto of 90 men, part of his muster of 800. The Hatamoto consisted of:
| Type | Amount |
|---|---|
| The Commander's retinue | |
| The lord's personal samurai (kinjū) | 4 |
| The lord's personal ashigaru (tomo) | 4 |
| Bearer of the lord's cross-bladed spea | 1 |
| Bearer of the lord's personal nobori (banner) | 1 |
| Groom | 1 |
| Sub-total | 12 |
| Mounted samurai | 3 |
| plus 7 attendants to each, namely:Samurai | 4 |
| Equipment bearers (ashigaru) | 2 |
| Groom | 1 |
| Sub-total | 24 |
| Foot samurai | 8 |
| Standard-bearer and attendant | 2 |
| Specialised ashigaru | |
| Arquebus | 3 |
| Archers | 2 |
| Spearmen | 4 |
| Servants and general bearers | |
| Lantern-carriers, 4 chests | 4 |
| Maku (field curtain) and standards in one large chest | 2 |
| Kitchen utensils, 2 chests | 2 |
| General porters, 2 packs | 2 |
| Food-bearers, 2 packs | 2 |
| Packhorse leader | 1 |
| Fodder-bearers, 3 packs | 3 |
| Grooms with spare horses | 2 |
| Gunpowder chest | 1 |
| Cloaks, etc., for rainy conditions, 2 large chests | 4 |
| The kinjū's armour, 2 large chests | 4 |
| The tomo's armour, 1 large chest | 2 |
| Another large armour chest | 2 |
| The lord's armour, 1 chest | 1 |
| Footwear-bearer, 1 chest | 1 |
| Arquebuses and tools (bullet moulds, etc.), 1 large chest | 2 |
| Bullets, powder, arrows, 1 large chest | 2 |
| Sub-total | 37 |
| Total 90 |
By that count (after a bit of calculating ^because ^Turnbull ^sucks ^at ^adding ) out of 98 men (90+the lord himself+Turnbull miss counting the mounted samurai group by 6+someone) there are 33 samurai (33.7%).
At the Siege of Osaka in 1614, Shimazu Iehisa had:
| Type | Amount |
|---|---|
| Mounted Samurai | 130 |
| Foot Samurai | 456 |
| Spearmen | 200 |
| Matchlock-men | 300 |
| Archers | 200 |
| Flag-bearers and standard-bearers | 56 |
| Carriers of wooden shields | 50 |
| Carriers of armour chests | 30 |
| Carrier of 100-arrow quiver boxes | 30 |
| Carriers of bullet and powder | 30 |
| Carriers of 1,000 shots of gunpowder each | 50 |
| Grooms with spare horses | 15 |
| Estimate of 20 weapon-bearers | 20 |
| Total | 1567 |
The math checks out this time ^thanks ^Turnbull. That gives us 586 samurai out of 1567 men (37.4%).
If Turnbull's number seem to be very high comparing to muster rolls, remember that what he lists are hatamoto. So it's not surprising there's more samurai here.
