Depending on where you lived, there was a good chance that you would be involved in military activities even if you didn’t desire it. Consider the example of four mountain villages, Tsuchimaru, Ōgi, Shōbo and Fuhaguchi, who had the bad luck of being located near a major roadway located between the warring sōhei of Negoro and Kokawa Temples and the Hosokawa in Osaka. If the villages detected an attack by one of these factions, the villagers would declare that they were going deer hunting (in order to fool spies) and all the male villagers would gather their weapons and put on their hunting clothes and move deeper into the mountains to prepare for the attack. The villagers were also savvy in playing off one faction against another – for instance, if they were attacked by the forces of Negoro Temple, they would ask the Hosokawa for protection or vice versa.

Another example of peasants being caught up between multiple power centers is the Hachisuka clan. Originally of Owari, they were expelled from Owari by the Oda for their close ties with their rival, Saito Dosan in Mino. The Hachisuka relocated themselves to borderlands between Owari and Mino near the Kiso River where they made connections with a prominent merchant family (for whom they served as enforcers) as well as other dogō (wealthy or prominent peasants). The extended Hachisuka clan, composed of these connections, would incorporate some 650 people and become known as the Kawasujishū or Kawanamishū. This organization would eventually be incorporated into the Oda military organization thanks to the Hachisuka’s connection to Toyotomi Hideyoshi and the Hachisuka would gain their own domain and castle due to their service. So a prominent peasant family with the right connections and military skills could rise to samurai status and further.

Indeed, as the intensity of military conflict increased in the sixteenth century, the various daimyo increasingly began to tap into the manpower provided by the villages of the countryside. The later Hojō would directly enroll village leaders and other prominent notables as direct retainers of the daimyo. In exchange for tax breaks, stipends and the right to petition the daimyo directly, the village leader was expected to raise a designated number of soldiers, equip and uniform them in line with Hojō regulations and show up for annual inspection at a local castle. An example of this is the Arakawa troop which was expected to raise 2 mounted soldiers and 9 foot soldiers and report to the castle at Hachigata for inspection or as needed. The need for manpower intensified so much that the Hojō were issuing mobilization orders like this:

The names of all men from this village, whether samurai or commoner, are to be registered for service in the case of domanial emergency. Of these, two are to be drafted. As for weapons, they may be freely chosen from three types: bow, pike or matchlock. If a pike is chosen, it may either be wood or bamboo, but it cannot be less than twelve feet long… This registration applies to all men between 15 and 70 years of age. The weapons of those two who are chosen must be well kept. If an able-bodied man is deliberately left behind, he and the deputy indendant will lose their heads. Those who serve well, whether samurai or commoner, will be rewarded.

So yeah, given the circumstances of the era and depending on where you lived, you might not have had a choice about joining the military, though if you did well and had the right connections, you or your kids could have ended up well-off.

Sources:

Birt, M. P. (1983). Warring states: A study of the Go-Hojo Daimyo and domain, 1491-1590 (dissertation). University Microfilms International, Ann Arbor, MI.

Birt, M. P. (1985). Samurai in Passage: The transformation of The Sixteenth-century Kanto. Journal of Japanese Studies, 11(2).

Neilson, D. D. (2007). Society at War: Eyewitness accounts of sixteenth century Japan (dissertation).