You may have heard of them, the samurai. One of the things that made this hereditary class so interesting was that each samurai was entitled to an annual salary from the daimyo called a stipend. This privilege basically paid them off and assured that they didn't become restless warriors plaguing the countryside, that is, bandits. We tend to think of samurai as noble and honorable, but urban samurai, according to Andrew Gordon's book A Modern History of Japan, were a rough-and-tumble lot. Samurai gang wars, a West Side Story, and the shadows of Edo Castle were frequent in the early 1600s. You still say that history books are boring. As with kings and lesser nobles anywhere, the central bakufu had trouble controlling the more powerful daimyo, who were able to build up their own strength because of their control over local resources.