"There is story from Heian period in Japanese history that I always found amazing. Japan was still ruled by the Imperial court and there were local administrators and so on, like any Oriental centralized despotism. But there was also warrior class. They inherited this from some steppe invasions that changed their society a few centuries before. Anyway as always happens, the Imperial bureaucrats grew useless and weak and by the end of this age, all the actual physical power was with the samurai. What I find amazing is how long it took them to figure out they no longer had to listen to the weak commands of the Imperial hierarchy, and that they were actually the rulers. Words like "legitimacy," "soft power," "rights," or, in their time honor, duty, divine right and so on are all delusions meant to distract and obscure men of power from their own strength and aims, and put them in service to someone else."