What did a Samurai Battlefield Look Like?
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 28 ก.ย. 2024
- What would the atmosphere of an iconic Sengoku Jidai Samurai battlefield have been like?
Check out the Shokuho mod for Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord!
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• Why Gods and Generals ...
My video on the topic of Bushido:
• The Bushido Myth
My Ranking of the Top 10 Samurai Battles of all time:
• Top 10 Important Samur...
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Real samurai battles involve the mandatory screaming of the name of one's sword technique followed by the sudden appearance of Kanji characters in mid-air and accentuated by the copious squirting of pressurized blood.
Yes I read this too somewhere. I also read samurai sprinting techniques extensively and one of the most famed running styles was to linger your arms back behind your waistline , this was often referred to as the "Naruto" run in the 15th century.
If you are talking about battles uptil 12 th century you are right. They introduced his name and family background before fighting. But everything changed after Mongols came in 13th C. They didn,t follow such Japanese rituals.
Their voice would also echo when they said the name of the technique.
It was all about hyper attacks. The samurai had them, the old Chinese of the three kingdoms period didn't have them. But both had musou attacks!
HACHIMAN’S FURY
Suicide by "Jumping from horse at full gallup with sword between your teeth" is about the craziest and most badass thing I can think of.
I second that. But hay at least looked cool dying.
I still don’t understand how that’d kill you
@@seanstamper1459 I can only assume on impact the sword sliced though his mouth, more or less slicing his head off.
@@jaywerner8415 i d assume that the took so that it implaed his head whenn he crused into the ground
@@seanstamper1459 i can actually imagine some scenarious of it. imagine if it missed your cervical spine. and felt the pain while you are slowly bleeding away.
There is a lot of reasons Oda Nobunaga can make a good antagonist in a semi-fictional story. He is a man ruthlessly crushing independent temples and rivals when he needs to.
War is everything but glorious and that "smell of victory" is shit from corpses
On the battlefield, the smell of victory is always the same as the smell of defeat. Especially if the weather was warm it would linger. At least the dead don't have to smell it for days after the battle.
No offense guys but none You know shit about battlefield
Humans have been waging wars ever since the dawn of civilization. There has been so much warfare in history that every single area of land has had human blood shed on it multiple times over, perhaps. These fearless warriors couldn't just put down their weapons in the middle of a battlefield, become pacifists and go home singing Kumbaya. Their reality was that they had to fight to the death with deadly weapons and any mistake could've meant death for themselves and (even worse) victory for the enemy. They had been training to fight their entire lives. To simply dismiss their valor, incredible fighting ability and the absolute disregard for death in a moronic and futile argument for "wArS aRe BaD!!!111" is one of the most ignorant things I've ever heard of.
Living in Japan we visit battlefields and they continue to have a very eerie feeling! If I take photos at night with a flash ‘kodama’ spheres as they are sometimes known are everywhere moving to different positions if I shoot really rapidly! Great channel and info…Thanks…ありがとうございました！
As the Otomo intro says when using Tanegashima: 'weapons that kill without honour, but bring victory. Victory, however, brings honour...'
As my grandfather said, “if you are in a fight, hit them in the groin first. There is no such thing as losing honorably.”
@Fondil Mahbols *guns, anime, and Jesus
The remaining samurai said in a fight between life and death, theres no such thing as honour.
"wEaPOns tHaT kiLl wiTHout hONour" what a bullshit take on honor
Its no different than any other missile weapon. This idea that guns were somehow dishonorable is crazy. Knights and samurai both used firearms extensively.
Yea video on ranks within the samurai/ashigaru classes,
Basically every warrior across history outside beginning of record history were practical and not stupid and fought to win even knights and Samurai.
Oh no, there were definitely idiots on historical battlefields, who tried stupid things, but they usually died and no one bothered to remember them.
There were also entire cultures whose idea of warfare was based on rituals and procedure and ideas of how things 'should be', but they usually only lasted until they came across someone who took advantage of it.
Duels probably happened during the skirmishing part of the battle, which can last quite a while before either army commits to a fight.
I think a ,,relatively" close depiction of warfare came in Battlefield 1. It's not _the most_ historically accurate WW1 game out there, but it does a very good job at showing what a battlefield might have looked like: destroyed homes and mud everywhere, fear you can feel from the computer yourself, sometimes rage as you charge forward, maybe even a pride and sense of mission as you heal your teammates or try to bravely take down a tank - and once you see an enemy, it's all just a massive hunger game for survival, but in fancy (but bloody and unwashed) suits - everyone killing everyone else, with everything and every trick they have up their sleeve (even as much as drowning an enemy soldier in a puddle - that last one is a scene from _All Quiet on Wesrern Front,_ actually. One thing this movie got right).
I imagine Samurai warfare might have looked similarly - but with diffrent technology and weapons.
I always like to consider Negoro monks and Saika villagers as the first masters of musketry in Japan, being able to fire 3 times faster compared to Nobunaga’s men while being more accurate, these folks dwarfed any proper army at the time and are an asset to any lord who hire them.
这些僧侣和农民是古流传承的铁炮术，就跟剑术和枪术流派差不多，专门习练铁炮，自然比征召的足轻强。
Guessing they already mastered the handcanon before upgrading to arquebuses.
15:55: I strongly I agree with you, the Shogunate, The tactics and equipment used during the Sengoku Jidai, from the Onin war, to the battle of Nagashino, to the battle of Shizugatake, to the Korean campaign (Imjin war) to the battle of Sekigahara are extremely fascinating and interesting.
It has always been that writers and artists tended to focus on individuals or small units in order to portray the humanity of the participants. This led to the idolized creation of codes of honorable combat that happened, but were actually a minor part in the overall combat on battlefields. The participants goal was always to prevail and defeat their opponents, gaining the objectives that they were after, and to survive. The chaos of the actual battlefield is always clarified and codified, by the artists and writers who portray or describe the encounters, usually at some point well after the encounters actually occurred. Propaganda, myth making, and popularity always played a part in the images and stories that framed how conflicts were ultimately remembered.
Well done. Very well studied. Accurate. Very precise to real Japanese history. A big appraisal from Japan.
I very much appreciate your insightfulness. In as much as understanding the circumstance of battle, our ignorance to any moment beyond that which we live. In a turn of phrase, you see enough to know what you don't. Thanks for a cool video!
Japanese samurai during the civil war quickly changed their lords in search of higher rewards.
At that time, it was normal to change the lord many times in his life.
The samurai always negotiated with the lord about the reward.
When the peaceful era began and the relationship between the samurai and the lord was fixed,
the samurai's "honor" and "morality" began to be touted.
也不一定是战争时代，即使战国结束后的江户时代，也有下级武士数次跳槽效忠不同的主公，一切都是为了薪水。
I think something that alot of war movies get wrong is sound, battles even before gun powder would still be loud with screaming commands, metal clashing and the yells and shouts of the dying
Man your stuff is so high quality and interesting. Thank you
an old friend of mine from Japan. One said either you’re married into a samurai clan or you’re born into one
If not born into or married into you’re just a plain old swordsman
Not realising what I had learned playing through Samurai warriors series, incredible
Thank you for this video. It always irks me when seeing the romanticized "honorable, code abiding" depiction of Samurai created in the Edo Jidai. Warfare based in tradition and limited to the warrior caste implemented into total war seems such an oversight and inaccurate. On another note: I saw your Q and A video where you say you went to UWM, where I assume you are from Wisconsin. As a half-Japanese American and fellow Wisconsinite I was pleasantly surprised to find someone in my area creating such detailed quality content on the Sengoku Jidai.
He’s from Wisconsin too? Looks like the new home for samurai is in the wastelands of Wisconsin. Lol
"the battlefield is a scene of constant chaos, whoever controls that chaos is the victor" -napoleon
10:07 such a beautiful rendition
Love your narration. Pleasant voice
How has it taken me this long to discover your channel? Insta-subscribed.
"Never stray from the way." - Miyamoto Musashi
Lol I love at the beginning it has all the ashigaru running in formation, but at the end of the segment and combat is joined, all sense of formation immediately breaks down like it does in every bloody medieval combat sim
Also artists and writers reflect the perceived image after the actual battle. It's more a reflection of ideals than reality. Also the winners write history. You can see the same principle with Richard III. or Cao Cao, who were branded as the villains by their enemies/succesors
I can describe battles of that time period with only one word...horrific
Men screaming at the top of their lungs, thunder and dark skies, axes getting driven into the faces of their foes...I can't even imagine the horror of those battles
To you it's horror, to them it was the most incredible thing in the world. The successful warriors longed to experience it again.
@@tylermartin7245 Very true
I remember renting and watching "Heaven and Earth" several times when I was in college. I really enjoyed it each time, even if I DID have to read the subtitles.
Also I have came across some statement on Japanese Middle Ages warfare, specifically stating the Takeda model, they claimed that ashigaru are more playing a defensive role, a single row of ashigaru spearman will try to bog down the enemy by slashing spears while a line of ji-samurai behind using short spears will do the killing, it was also mentioned that the relative unimportance of ashigaru was shown by the marching column as these spearman was marching on the rear, way behind skirmishes and samurai columns, which means that upon contact the first to engage would be more reliable samurai troops rather than the supposed backbone of the army.
Another thing mentioned by the statement is the record of merit, which by the late Sengoku Jidai head count is still dominating factor of merit, thus its usually the samurai who does the killing receive the merit, while ashigaru would almost never be promoted due to the limited chance to actually take enemy heads.
Samurai battlefield during Sengoku Jidai representing the height of martial prowess. It's full of skilfully use of various weapons like swords, spear, bow and arrow, and even firearms. The warrior during this time practically need to mastered the use of these weapons to emerge victorious and eventually this all ended when the modern firearms begin to take over the whole battlefield.
Personally I dont think Oda Nobunaga was demonized during Kagemusha (unlike in the other instances) but more like that the whole movie is told through the Takeda POV. Aside from that great video man
Hey this is the first I’ve heard of the Bannerlord 2 mod. I’m excited, I never played the first one.
A great video. To paraphrase Terry Pratchett... he had been brought up on paintings of great charges and victories, when he became a soldier the one thing he noticed was that the artist had missed out entrails. He supposed they just weren’t very good at painting them.... it would seem the Japanese artists weren’t so squeamish.
Here's an idea: Sengoku Jedi
Samurai : commits suicide when realizing they lost
eskrimador: take as much with them even at face of defeat.
16:06 well yeah, Star Wars is a WW2 Samurai Space Opera 😁😋
Great video, thank you!!
I love your videos. Could you please make a video about the relation between japan and the Netherlands?
Man he used the bf1 theme to great effect, it really sets the effect.
Hard to believe that in feudal Japan, in the age of Ninja and Samurai...that the Samurai were STILL using guns even back then.
Samurai were also known to conduct raids on towns and in so doing would kill defenseless people, even infants, without even hesitating.
Excellent video, very informing.
Total War Shogun 2 is among the best of the total war titles.
How accurate are those to reality.
Ashigaru and Spear war in a nutshell:
poke poke poke
War is no place for honor. Only honor in war is death
Thanks for the update😊
Imagine. A great bunch of warriors cutting of body parts and heads of your commarades to show demonstrate and improve themselves. I'm glad we live in this "happy" tim
This video would crush the illusion of people that believe the Samurai was always the paragon of honor.
Glad this video was made, I would shove this to their faces.
Are you ever gonna cover the imjin war? or does that not count as a sengoku jidai related event. Keep up the amazing work always looking forward to a new video
Even in the late Heian and Kamakura periods, assassination, ambush, traps, deception, arson, the slaughtering of non-combatants, all that was a completely legitimate part of samurai warfare. Karl F. Friday does some good work in saying, sure the mounted duel thing was real, but warfare was not all that "honorable" even back then.
I'd heard that slaughter of peasants was looked down upon and could make the lord who ordered such acts a pariah. Is that not correct?
@@insaneweasel1 It was a relatively common tactic to set an enemy's residence on fire and then kill anyone who fled. Man, woman, or child, combatant or servant. The attacking of peasants was often looked down upon... when it was someone else doing it. Otherwise they were a legitimate target because their farming was the economic base for the enemy's ability to wage war. Now this does not mean that violence towards non-combatants was rampant. One had to consider the sentiment of the population they would rule over if they were victorious, and other consequences of such actions. But, it was not like farmers, merchants, and such were off limits in general. There were times that orders were given not to harm them though. Famously, Oda Nobunaga when he entered Kyoto banned robbing of the citizens or raping of women under the threat of severe military punishment (meaning most likely immediate execution). It is very situational. I simply meant that it was not a general rule that they were supposed to be untouchable.
"Honor" has always been bullpoop. Even the glorified and holier than thou knights of the middle ages regularly committed atrocities by modern standards and slayed many defenseless peasants. Honor is only a thing in fiction.
Could u do a short series on boshin wars?
Sound like the sengoku sammies are juz ceremonial cavalry chargers 🔌?
It is interesting that the Japanese had their own version of the Hundred Years War.
It turns out, if the only 2 roads are victory or execution, youll probably die trying or kill yourself in the loss.
Brandon F has a video about grape shot that puts the bloodshed of warfare into great context
good god this channel is awesome
What a Samurai battlefield look like? Probably a massive wrestling match
"What a samurai battlefield looks like"
*unstoppable oda long yari ashigaru spam*
But the last samurai movie is not about the segoku jidai, its about the rebelion of Saigo Takamori, against the modernization of Japan and the end of the samurai class, so it kind of makes sense not using firearms.
It seems like Samurai warfare during the Sengoku Jidai would be like European Pike and Shot warfare. As described during the Imjin War by a Korean Officer, it sounded very similar.
I don't know if the tactics would rely on shot quite as much as European armies, given the comparative rarity and value of gunpowder bows probably constituted the majority of ranged weaponry for most of the Sengoku Jidai but in later periods probably.
goin off of a book i read/still reading on the Imjin War, i would say there are some similarities but still has key differences. one instance presented a more offensive tactic than what i understand of European Pike and Shot tactics. since Korean forces' main weaponry were bows (that i believe were stronger than Japanese bows but had shorter effective range, unless im misremembering), a tactic the Japanese would use was a slow advance followed by a volley of arquebus fire before more advancing followed by another volley until they were within range to charge with their melee weapons. this of course had a lot of initial success as the only real small arms the Koreans encountered and knew of was the Chinese fire lances or whatever. interestingly enough before the actual war, there was trade between Korea and the samurai clan on Tsushima, where a tanegashima firearm was gifted to the Korean envoy. but with the Korean courts being heavily divided between "Eastern" and "Western" (no not Europe West, but simply the founders of the factions were in the East and West of Korea) factions, whatever one faction member said the other would take the opposing side to undermine them, so while there were some who tried to raise the alarm that tanegashima guns could be used devastatingly, the other side would scoff and say they are mere toys and can't be used in warfare/their heavy cavalry could charge them down inbetween reloads similar in thinking to the Takeda at Nagashino.
the Koreans did have superior cannons compared to the Japanese however, which were mounted on ships and effectively could blast a Japanese ship out of the water without taking much more than smallarms fire or arrow volleys. unless it was commanded by the guy who hated Yi Sun Shin and just let his entire fleet get boarded and destroyed losing much of their famed Turtle ships with it.
As far as what is honorable and dishonorable, 2 quotes:
"history is written by the victors" i forget who wrote this
"These Europeans and their guns bring power, power brings victory, and victory wipes away dishonor" Shogun 2 total war when you accept European trade.
That second quote is probably how most people would think id imagine.
12:08 that's a very scary scene of samurai battles before Bushido came into play.
Antony Cummins said it best regarding samurai combat: “There you are, with your friends, murdering people.”
Antony is a princess
It's been 2 years and no release date confirmed for Shokuho, lol.
It's easy to counter the gun back then. Wait till it start to rain, then attack. That's why the bow and arrow stayed a part of the army until modern times.
Did u say Sengoku Jedi ?................i like that ............may the force be with u mann
Now I wonder whether the Satsuma rebels used any tactics different from their Imperial Army opponents. Especially since they were made up of samurai that refused commoners to join. The only notable exception I can think of is the close-combat charge at Shiroyama, overwhelming the Imperial soldiers in melee for a short time.
Good and informative and entertaining👍
War is horrible and beautiful at the same time. But I can tell you from experience that when life is on the line, no one is worried about some silly personal honor. You're worried about yourself and the man to your left and right, and those you're in charge of.
Short answer: pure carnage
16:00 "because you have both firearms, swords, and spears"
lookup the german Landsknechte. they were mercenary troop whose unit was composed of pikemen, zweihander, and arquebus. moreover look at the other european formations during the "pike and shot" era of warfare. you'd be surprised.
OUR MEN ARE RUNNING FRUOM THE BATTLEFIELD!!! AH.. SHAMEFUR DISPURAY!!
Great video!
It's known as theater of war Time in memorial
Here trying to learn how to cheese shogun 2 total war. I can confirm that most of my battles, despite liberal use of yari wall and guard stance, devolve into vicious bloody mobs of melee.
What's the round thing on his belt at 4:20 that I see a lot of samurai archers wear?
Let me know if you find out.
Bashed and precise
Samurai are the same as any other professional killers. The killing is the most important thing. Survival second. Anything else is third.
This is totally wrong. Samurai always used napalm airstrikes. As Oda Nobunaga once said, in perfect British accent for some reason: “i like the smell of napalm in the morning... smells like honor”
It still amazes me that people Romanticize warfare. Specifically regarding the 'Honor Code' in Samurai warfare, I don't think it could be more obvious than when Musashi wrote (paraphrased) that the purpose of a duel is not to show which style or school of fighting is best, the purpose of a duel is to kill and however you can do that is the best. That isn't 'honourable'...that is practical, and practicality is what determines who owns the future.
So... Heads go chop?
I fear your general is in mortal peril sir!
Our men are fleeing from the battlefield! Shameful display!
Welp, looks like I'm picking up Bannerlord. :D
Would it look like a bunch of shouting men, in various formations, wearing a mix of hard and stiffened leather, and metal, with back flags, wielding long sticks with metal and sharp metal sticks, with some bendy sticks that shot thinner sticks with metal, some with heftier sticks with studs, that one guy who wields a big axe, some with five legged, long faced animals, and some with metal and wooden sticks with fiery black stuff and metal balls.
Probably what it looked like
With Tom Cruise charging it be looking like wololo
I wonder how they clean up the battlefields and bury the bodies
The Sengoku period being filled with swords, guns, and pole arms all at once reminds me of one of the reasons I also find the thirty years war in Europe so fascinating.
Yo, do yall remember that game that was on androids Samurai Battlegrounds?
Did that get deleted?
5:33 I think we often forget that these kinds of battles were all pure manual fighting. We tend to think of battles in modern, industrialised terms. I.e. they can go on for hours, days, years even. But in those days it was all down to muscle power and endurance. The main clashes would have lasted minutes rather than hours. How long can a man carrying armour and heavy weapons really, realistically keep going before he's exhausted and needs a break? 30 minutes? An hour maybe if he's in real top shape? I doubt it would be much longer than that. In medieval European battles there are accounts of men dying of exhaustion during and after battles.
The Romans were so successful because it is believed they had a system of rotation in their order of battle, specifically to deal with this issue. They'd have rows of perhaps a dozen men, all waiting their turn at the front line. They'd fight for a couple minutes and then would return to the back of the line. Meaning they'd fight for a couple minutes and then they'd have 12x that amount of time to recover before having another go.
So unless the Samurai had a similar system, battles would likely have a number of 'breaks'. Or at least lulls in the fighting. I think these duels would have taken place during those lulls, or perhaps prior to the main clash of the opposing armies?
Imagine two armies facing off on a battlefield. Both are more or less waiting for the other to make a move. Maybe there's some negotiation going on. Maybe they're doing a little shit-talking to get things going. Would be an excellent opportunity for some Samurai to have a few duels in the middle-ground. All eyes would be on them. Great opportunity to build some renown.
Or maybe there really was a sort of 'honour system'. Where Samurai would more or less detach from the the main body to fight separate duels? I'd imagine that system would get abused a lot though. With the occasional sneaky stab in the back while the duel was taking place?
Weirdly enough, the samurai rarely fought on foot or with melee since they started as mounted archers. Only in the later stage where they used bow less and less.
Japanese horses are basically ponies like those of Britain. So the heavily armored samurai would be too heavy for the horse to run thus infantry could catch up woth them. Yes the famed Takeda charge was accompanied by running light infantry. That means while they did have spears, they didn’t had the charge like the European cavalry charges.
The Samurai eventually fight on foot, with spears. If you play the game Shogun 2 total war, you’ll the units in the game technically fought one on one. It is due to engine limitations. However in real life..well samurai warfare looked like that too. Warfare in Japan was pretty disorganized as troops rarely fought with formation. They stay together, yes but when the battle starts, the Japanese armies looked like a bunch of bees smashing into each other while doing one on one with the exception of the ashigaru who fought “dishonorably”.
This come to the case of Oda Nobunaga. His troops were the first to have the phanlanx formation and they fought with guns, like the tercio. He was a much hated figure and although he won a lot of battles, the disgruntled samurai assassinated him (through a siege).
When the samurai invaded Korea, this is at a point where Japanese warfare became more organized. This is because they were complaining about the Chinese dishonorable tactic of pulling people using a Chinese pike and stab them instead of doing one v one.
By the battle of Sekigahara, it was the final nail on the coffin as the samurai found more than half of their weaponries were unusable as troops fought in tight formations.
After that everyone just lowkey forgot how to fight, then they fought once again a bit later when the Christian revolted.
The samurai never fight a medieval battle again afterward.
It is more difficult to be honorable and good, than to be dishonorable and evil. That's why you save being honorable and good for when your not fighting.
Great video, have you ever read or listend to "Clan of the Otori" by Lian Hearn? In case you didnt: it is a fantasy novel roughly at the time of the sengoku jidai and if you like having some fantasy in your novels it is actually quite a good series.
A year late but this is the first time I've seen this series mentioned in a comment! I love those books. Read them as a kid and return to them every so often. The world just draws you in.
@@whiteskull1067 Agree fully with you!
Jedi are based on samurai so makes sense.. Great vid for the morning 🤣
“What’s your head count”
Bro this mod still not out yet
If only i can time travel i would watch the battle of sekigahara and record it.
Jutsupoemworks; kill enemy take their energy kill more enemy you no need rest, yours truly K.O. DE NAME KLASSIFIED
My first introduction to Nobunaga as a historical figure was through Onimusha; where he's the zombified big-bad who gets stopped by. . . Someguy Akechi. (Not Mitsuhide. Unless he had another name.)
Is it a good game? I like learning about history but can't stand strategy games.
the shogunate , do you know if those face protection that the gunners of uesugi kenshin wear in heaven and earth movie are accurate ? that type of face protection existed in japan ?
What historians overlook are the weapon makers and bankers of the time.
They lent money to the lords and emperors at high interest rates.
After the unification of Japan, the Tokugawas put gun production under government control for fear of their power.
They often cried for a debt cancellation order against the backdrop of force.
They asked for a guarantee of private property.
Bankers were the source of funds for the local samurai who carried out the Meiji Restoration.
An event similar to the West was happening in Japan.
Excellent!