Did the samurai ever fight non-Japanese in any significant way?
Not usually into military history, but the samurai are often held up in the media as the "ultimate warrior". But weren't they still using swords/bows when the rest of the world used guns? Didn't Japan only become a world power when they modernized?
I hate to ask history channel-tier questions, but would they have been comparable to other warriors of their time form different cultures (European, Chinese, middle eastern)? Were they actually exceptional warriors or is the "muh warrior society" media hype?
>>486602
Invasion of Korea 1592 (give or take a few years)
Later on the Chinese joined in and it became something of a stalemate.
Besides that they were hired in large-ish numbers by various European factions and other Asian countries such as Thailand.
>>486602
They fought the Mongols and they got rekt until saved by a storm. The ultimate warrior thing is a total meme, they were basically Native Indian warriors but with better technology in that they were obsessed with ritualism and single person combat. These are not good traits to have when facing Europeans or Central Asians.
>>486602
>Formally
Koreans.
Mongols.
That one tussle with the Jurchens in the 1590's in Korea.
Yuan & Ming Chinese.
Burmese.
They did OK with Mongols and Chinese, and wrecked Koreans hard.
>Informally
Usually in the form of Ronins going pirate
-Spaniards in the Philippines
-Portuguese in various places in Southeast Asia
-Various Southeast Asians.
-Chinese again
-Koreans again
Contemporarily: people in the region respected the Samurai (possibly except Korea, which saw everything Japanese as barbarous). The Chinese said they were pretty brave, and the Spanish in the Philippines actually welcomed Christian Japanese Samurai exiles in their colonial armies in the 1500's-1590's. But it wasnt because they were super-soldiers or anything, but they're free professionals without a job and they exploited this given how very few of the Spanish Army in the Philippines consisted of Europeans due to the difficulties of getting from Spain to Southeast Asia.
>>486643
That way of warfare became old really fast when facing Mongols and they quit doing that.
Samurai have a certain knightly charm that Europeans noticed when they arrived in Japan.
>>486659
PS, this thread is probably going to turn out really shitty so I might aswell say this now.
Some consider the Samurai the ultimate warrior while others thing they are weaboo meme tier warrior. Try not to think in extremes and you'll find the truth somewhere in the middle.
pic unrelated.
>>486651
In addition to this: in the 1500's and 1600's Chinese and Japanese pirates actually sailed together and formed alliances by friendship & intermarriage. Chinese often handled the naval aspect of things while Japanese members handled landing parties.
A famous example of this was the dreaded pirate lord of the 1600's South China Sea: Limahong. He led a titanic fleet of Japanese and Chinese pirates and his second in command and best friend was a Japanese Ronin known only by his latinized name (thanks to Spanish records). "Captain Sioco"
The working relationship of the two was that Limahong handled the seaborne operations while Sioco landed with his retainers -all Samurai- and did the land battles.
Worked well for them up until a combined Ming Chinese & Spanish operation dashed them into Northern Philippines and destroyed the dreaded fleet.
>>486651
when and why did they fight in south east asia? I dont know anything about japanese history
>>486602
>But weren't they still using swords/bows when the rest of the world used guns?
The samurai adopted the gun quite prolifically and in fact at one point had more guns circulating than the whole of Europe.
>>486701
Dunno about the other places but google Imjin Wars involving Korea and China. Those were the big ones.
Basically, one of Japan's Shogun rulers literally lost his mind and decided to carve an empire out of the Korean peninsula. Even crazier was that he almost pulled it off had it not been for the one of the greatest admirals of all time wrecking them at sea and massive Chinese intervention on land.
>>486602
I read somewhere the accounts of a british officier who recommended always carrying two guns and shooting them from a distance, because they were so vicious and fast in close combat.
It's sort of logical that they were good warriors since "muh warrior society" and constant wars. Consider also: Because Japan is so poor in iron, I think they had a totally different and possibly more challenging situation than in Europe. The one and only way to kill a fully armored 15th century European knight was to wrestle him to the ground and stab him in the armor openings/eye slit. Japanese armor however was much shittier, so they had to pay much more attention to not get killed.
All in all, I'm not familiar enough. But I think "muh invincible warrior" is generally a meme. The Spartans would absolutely annihilate any army in even combat, but they still got their asses kicked when they got into tactic disadvantage.
But it's fair to say that there were individuals everywhere (like Miyamoto Musashi) who were almost invincible.
They were a professional warrior class and as such about as strong as any other professional warrior class.
They rekt the Koreans hard in 1592 because the Koreans only had peasant levies. Once Ming finished their wars in the East and sent their own professional army to Korea the Japanese were driven out and lost the war.
An advantage the Samurai had was that they were not mainly sword fighters as often depicted in media, but rather versatile warriors, trained in swords, spears, archery and later gunnery.
>>486720
More guns than any one country in Europe, not all of Europe combined.
>>486701
in 1593, the warrior-nation of Burma invaded Thailand (again). Their King panicked and sent a carte blanche for mercenaries and foreign assistance. Shitloads of people answered for the lucrative deal. You had mercenary outfits from Vietnam, China, and exiles of Japan answering the call.
Outside the mercenaries, sovereign states also answered Thailand for better trading deals with them. Portugal sent a artillery crew. Spain sent native Filipino arquebusiers. Toyotomi Japan sent 500 soldiers.
And there's also the presence of Ronin in pirate fleets that were active in Southeast Asia.
>>486733
They weren't really poor in iron m8.
It's like the third or fourth most common element on this planet and in it's crust.
>>486747
That sounds like a based war. What was it called?
>>486747
Which osprey book is that from?
>>486761
It has no name given how Burma and Thailand were almost always in a constant state of war, with Thailand often at the losing end.
Though the 1590's war was memorable due to 1) Thailand won and 2) The personal combat between the elephants of the Crown Prince of Burma and King Naresuan of Thailand.
Also the Japanese Samurai that stayed for a while in Siam had an impact in local swordsmithing. Japanese blades were prized in all of Asia and were considered good swords from China to Thailand before the Japan closed up in the 1600's. So a lot of Thai swordsmiths pretty much bought swords from Samurai (who served as middlemen in Thailand for swordsmiths back in Japan), and attempted to recreate the blade geometry.
It also bears in mind that Japanese swords look remarkably similar to the Native Burmese/Thai sword: the Dha, which is derived from the Chinese Dao from way back. So Japanese swords had a place in Burmese/Thai warfare.
>>486770
Filename.
1st Mongol Invasion: they didn't do well, saved by the Typhoon.
2nd Mongol Invasion: they actually did pretty well. There was another Typhoon, but they were winning the war.
Invasion of Korea: they did very well in the land battles against the Koreans and the best generals did very well against the Chinese army (at the time, a pretty good army), as well. They mostly lost due to logistics (over 100,000 troops in a sea invasion was quite a feat at the time, I don't think Charles V had what it takes to do this) and the Koreans having a broken admiral.
So, you could say they had a respectable record. They were OK.
Overrated among the general public, if you consider their mystical image of invincible warriors.
Massively underrated on 4chan, since many act as this idiot here >>486643
>>486797
I think I might have read it but subsequently forgot the picture.
>>486602
Mongol invasions, the Imjin War (against Korea/China), and the invasion of Okinawa.
>>486809
>the invasion of Okinawa.
Yeah, forgot about that. But then, it was an enterprise of the Shimazu that were particularly good at war.
>>486759
Doesn't mean you are able to mine it everywhere equally. Norway literally has it in the earth itself.
I'm pretty sure I read on multiple account how poor in iron Japan was, but here's a wikipedia link:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mining_in_Japan
>>486833
Well: to dumb it down: its basically like this
>Burma/Thailand/Cambodia
Elephants, Elephants everywhere. With infantry following them around.
>Vietnam
Mini-Chinese Military 2.0.
>Insular Southeast Asia
Little Brown Vikings on longboats (with colourful sails and outriggers) on the shorelines. In the interior of the Islands: spearchucking headhunting loinclothed tribes
By the 1500's: all that continues: just add muskets and cannon.
When Spain arrived and conquered large parts of the Philippines in the 1500's-1600's shit became weirder further as they created this colonial army consisting of a few European Soldiers, Japanese Christians, Chinese sailors, and a mass of Filipino tribal warriors. The Non-European elements of which still utilizing their native weapons and using bits and pieces of Spanish armor, with the occassional Cross and Spanish coat of arms to mark out their allegiance to the Catholic faith and the Spanish Crown.
>>486880
Any RTS games that let you play as these armies? I've always been curious about how Elephants were supposed to work in combat. Whenever I read about them going against European armies, they never seemed to do much despite what you'd expect.
>When Spain arrived and conquered large parts of the Philippines in the 1500's-1600's shit became weirder further as they created this colonial army consisting of a few European Soldiers, Japanese Christians, Chinese sailors, and a mass of Filipino tribal warriors. The Non-European elements of which still utilizing their native weapons and using bits and pieces of Spanish armor, with the occassional Cross and Spanish coat of arms to mark out their allegiance to the Catholic faith and the Spanish Crown.
This sounds like the coolest shit ever. Any good documentaries/books you'd recommend?
>>486602
This website has some origninal and secondary sources on encounters between japanese swordsmen and their European counterparts near the bottom of the page. They seemed to have had a respectable reputation among Europeans in Asia. Of course popular cuture has blown them way out of proportion
http://www.tameshigiri.ca/2014/05/07/european-vs-japanese-swordsmen-historical-encounters-in-the-16th-19th-centuries/
>>486921
>Any good documentaries/books you'd recommend?
Nothing in particular as I read firsthand accounts (Flip here) and its just extremely fucking curious how the two primary historians of the Philippine Islands: the friars Antonio de Morga and Chirino, are casual of their mention of Japanese/Chinese soldiers on their Employ.
So their two respective books would be
>Sucesos de las Islas Filipinas
http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/7001.html.noimages
and
>Relacion de las islas Filipinas
Both are translated in English. There's also The Blair and Robertson's The Philippine Isles (55 Volumes but I only bothered to read bits of the early colonial period): two american historians who translated into English shitloads of Spanish official records during the whole 300 year stay in the Philippines.
>http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/search/?query=Blair+and+Robertson
Anyway, that's all I can give you. That and the fact that a lot of Filipino traditional weapons survived to this day largely because the Spaniards were highly reliant on local talent and that our short weapons are pretty much effective in Jungle fighting anyway. The Spaniards just gave the natives bits and pieces of European kit like armor, breastplates, and firearms up until they managed a European Drilled Force during the 1700's.
You also might want to look into the life of Takayama Ukon, a Daimyo who converted to Christianity. He became a bigshot celebrity in 1614 Philippines when he was exiled by the Toyotomi Regime to the Islands and was pretty much the highest ranking foreign lord to ever bunk down and settle in the Philippines along with his staff of retainers.
>>486798
Fuck you man, I am right, they only did good in the 2nd invasion because they basically hid behind walls they spent years preparing and as for the invasion of Korea they had gained a shitload of Portuguese tech and tactics by then and their navy was a fucking joke.
>>486734
>Once Ming finished their wars in the East and sent their own professional army to Korea the Japanese were driven out and lost the war.
Enough with your stupid bullshit, Chang. The Japanese were never "driven out" of Korea. The Japanese left Korea voluntarily when Hideyoshi passed away and received new orders to come back home. Before Hideyoshi died, Chinese and Korean armies attacked Japanese forts several times but were utterly destroyed despite completely outnumbering Japanese forces.
>>487004
>The Japanese were never "driven out" of Korea.
>The Japanese left Korea voluntarily when Hideyoshi passed away and received new orders to come back home.
True and false.
True that they were never driven out.
False that it was completely voluntary. When China came down, the Japanese were forced to retreat to the South. They did fight a number of successful battles- mostly Defensive- on the Wajo Castles of Ulsan and Sacheon. But realistically thats the only bit of Korea that they will every control as the Chink/Gook forces pretty much got the second invasion penned in their beachheads.
When Hideyoshi died, the Daimyos saw no point in continuing the pointless war and promptly left.
>>487004
And the Americans left Vietnam voluntarily.
>>486997
So building a wall and engaging the enemy from ships are not legitimate tactics?
that's like saying the mongols weren't good fighters because they were on horses.
>>487034
I'm a different anon, dingus.
>>487034
I was being sarcastic. We all know "America left Vietnam voluntarily" is used as proof that America didn't lose by butthurt Americans. Same way that you are saying Japan didn't lose in Korea because they "chose to leave". Well just like America in 1975 Japan left "voluntarily" because the war was going badly for them. This is tantamount to a defeat
>>487044
>The Zulu were better than the British because they won a battle after ambushing 2,000 British with 20,000 Zulus
>>487057
The British eventually conquered the Zulu. Assuming they kept trying the same thing it is unlikely the Mongols would have ever taken Kyushu.
>>487065
The only thing I'm sure of is you being a tremendously butthurt weeab claiming samefags where there are none.
>>487076
How do you say "denial" in chinese?
>>486941
>http://www.tameshigiri.ca/2014/05/07/european-vs-japanese-swordsmen-historical-encounters-in-the-16th-19th-centuries/
good link
>>487082
Why can't both those statements be true? The war was fought to a stalemate but politics meant that the Japanese had to withdraw. So the Ming entry into the war was enough to blunt the Japanese strategy until they had to leave?
>>486997
1- You are wrong about the second Mongol Invasion.
2- They got firearms, not tactics. And this is absolutely meaningless to this discussion.
3- You are still an idiot.
You should study more before being all edgy "anti-weaboo".
>>487228
Pretty much.
The battles between the Ming and the Samurai were not one-sided either way, other than the ones involving the Shimazu, that were quite a bit stronger than most other samurai.
The Ming and the Samurai were mostly equal. And there were mostly sieges.
>>487228
Pretty much this, for japan the war was a huge waste of money and resources. in battle they did pretty well, but the logistics and numbers were not on their side, and their navy sucked
>>486651
>The Koreans saw everything Japanese as barbarous.
The fucking irony.
>>487284
> Chang
Ive been arguing that the Japanese were more than meme warriors this whole thread. Winning battles and being better in individual combat does not necessarily win you wars, expessially when you have to transport everything by boat. The samurai had good armor, good weapons, and by that point good battle tactics on land, but they weren't invincible juggernauts
>>487238
Kill yourself
>>486633
True, but then Korea was lost less because of anything the samurai were doing but because of the superiority of Korea's cannon and turtle ships.
>>487404
KEK
Korean sea "battles" were raids on unoccupied ships at harbor, or sneak attacks on transport ships.
>>486602
Korea during the invasion, and China a little bit when they joined
and for like 20 minutes they fought the Mongols
The Samurai are certainly comparable to the Chinese and Korean warriors since as far as single infantry units go they were the Knights of Asia, probably the best combatants on the field there. But keep in mind that there were A LOT of Chinese people even then so the Samurai arent really that big a deal outside Japan because warfare in Asia was not ideal for Samurai. Warfare in Japan was more similar to Europe than it was to China so yes you could say the Samurai are comparable to warriors from there.
>>486602
much like the European Knight they would be extremely difficult to beat in single combat but in the wider concept of warfare they are nothing more than a soldier with a little extra armor.
History channel used to try and sell them as these mega bad asses but no ancient/medieval warrior really was.
>>487004
They were driven off the northern half,the fall of Pyongyang forced the Japanese to retreat to Hanseong.
The Ming were afraid that the Japanese would bypass Korea,but they ended up being spooked by a paltry force of 2,000+.
In their initial invasion, the Japanese made a beeline for Seoul then Pyongyang, chasing after the king, without securing surrounding provinces, which allowed guerilla forces to emerge and easily cut off their lines. They probably thought that conquering a region would make all the commoners of that region join your side like in Japan. The invasion was not well planned imo. The initial blitzkrieg advance was impressive but I think the invasion as a whole was doomed from the start, also considering China's inevitable involvement.
>>488309
It was pretty far fetched to think Japan could hold onto the mainland, I wonder if it just was not a clever way to divert the energies of Japan's large feudal armies to a place where they couldn't threaten Hiroyoshi's rule.
>>487284
>can't think of any refutes
>resort to pathetic name calling
that will show them
>>488322
Old monkey made an offer of letting any lord capturing Korean land have it as their fief. So he wanted to to remove as many lords from Japan as possible. Too bad he couldn't get rid of the ones that actually mattered, Tokugawa and Date.
>>486921
There's a mod for Mount and Blade called Suvarnabhumi Mahayuth (Golden Land) which is set in South-East Asia around the time the Portuguese started colonising, so you have several different kingdoms and some more niched powers (2 Vietnamese dynasties, a psuedo-Indian faction, a Muslim Indonesian faction etc.). It's pretty fun and there are elephants available as mounts.
>>488866
Someone ought to make a version of this, but with Hideyoshi telling the likes of Kato Kiyomasa & Company
Oh and Masamune Date fought in Korea. He had to as his was the most suspect of loyalties (last to bow down to Hideyoshi) His Ashigaru is well known for their yellow helmets.
>>488971
That would be brilliant, and a rare case of this being literally true.
It's 19th century romantic faggot memr about muh honor and muh chivalry.
Fucking romanticist retardery has been plaguing us for ages, from the native American noble savages to this shit.
>>486921
Shogun 2 Total War if you want Samurai. Rome Total War or Medieval 2 if you want Elephants, though the ones in Med 2 carry ridiculous shit like muskets and cannon. If you like Lord of the Rings though, there's an awesome mod for Med 2 called third age, where you're free to wreck havok with Mumakil.
>>488971
Masamune fought in Korea but not really really fought there like Kato and co. He just popped in as reinforcement for some time and returned.
>>488971
>Oh and Masamune Date fought in Korea. He had to as his was the most suspect of loyalties (last to bow down to Hideyoshi) His Ashigaru is well known for their yellow helmets.
As somewhat of a sidenote, it's pretty interesting how Date Masamune wrote back home from Korea and said something to the tune of "re: reinforcements, unless the dudes you're sending over come armed with muskets, don't bother sending them at all". When people imagine samurai, they tend to imagine guys with swords, or maybe horseback archers, but at this point it was almost all about the pike and shot for them, or their own variant of it anyway.
>>488866
>Too bad he couldn't get rid of the ones that actually mattered, Tokugawa and Date.
The Date was not as powerful as the Mori or Shimazu, that were sent to Korea.
IMO, Hideyoshi at the time was batshit insane and actually wanted to be Emperor of China. The Mori and Kato were much more loyal to him than the mentioned Date and Tokugawa and were sent there.
For military success, it would be a better idea to send the troops under the command of Shimazu Yoshihiro and allow him to set the overall strategy. Yoshihiro was the best living general in Japan, probably holds some world record of "most victories while outnumbered by more than 3x1 against troops of the same technology" and unlike Hideyoshi was not batshit insane.
>>487435
I'm pretty sure that the Battle of Hansan and Myeongnyang were full-fledged battles where the Japanese navy was prepared for battle and seeking out the Korean navy. The Battle of Hansan in particular was one of the most important battles of the entire war.
I wanna draw a proper version of it sometime, so tell me if you think I should change the selection of clans
>>488971
>>488979
>>489291
I do not know any Japanese clam emblems desu
Did the Korean invasion even hurt the Shimazu and Mori that much?
People said this affected Sekigahara, but...
If the Mori supported one of the sides in Sekigahara in weight, that side would win.
The Shimazu didn't send a lot of people to Sekigahara for a lack of interest. Yoshihisa didn't care and Yoshihiro went against his wishes with very few troops (he was supposed to join the Tokugawa, even).
The main way the Korean invasion hurt the Toyotomi was by having Ishida Mitsunari in charge. He alienated everyone and this led to plenty of people supporting Ieyasu.
>>486602
The Japanese picked up guns from Europeans in the mid 1500's and used them ever since.
Nobunaga was one of the first to use volley fire and pike and shot tactics in the world.
At one point the Japanese were outproducing everybody on the planet in firearms. Even after they shut down the borders to foreigners they still went on making guns.
This idea that the samurai never used guns, even as late as the 1800's is completely false. They were using guns for hundreds of years.
The Boshin War and the Satsuma rebellion, portrayed in The Last Samurai, were not one group of armor wearing sword wielding samurai versus a modern army. It was two modern armies shooting the shit out of each other with rifles and cannons.
By the 1800's most samurai had completely given up on armor and instead wore European style uniforms.
Who /Shimazu/ here? Date fags need not apply.
>>490490
Shimazu? Those provincial hicks from the outer rim?
>>490534
Give 10,000 Shimazu soldiers to Shimazu Iehisa and 10,000 Date soldiers to Masamune.
Iehisa would beat him with very few losses.
I would probably say that Iehisa with 3,000 soldiers would beat Date with 10,000.
>>489957
Actually they were still wearing armor at the battle of the clam gate in the 1860's though by the end of the revolution western uniforms were common.
>>490726
Who knows?
Considering he was a huge westaboo, Japan would've never closed it's borders. They likely would have modernized far quicker.
What that means for south east asia and diplomatic relations from 1600 onward I don't know.
Still given how he treated his retainers and how often he had to deal with betrayals, its unlikely an Oda Shogunate would've been as long or subdued as Tokugawa's.
>>490765
Oda didn't want to become shogun though. He had ample opportunities to become one but he wanted the very top.
>>491821
He would've been shogun in all but name regardless. Whether he gets the title or not, he would still effectively be shogun and just make sure the emperor was a puppet he could use.
>>491824
But he hated that old shit. He'd rather make a new dynamic system than follow the old one that does the exact same shit but has ritualistic traditions behind it.
>>489636
Japanese guys need topknots and Ming general needs a helmet
>>489907
>>491927
Added topknots to the other Anon's image.
>>492865
Didn't it ruin the Ming, as well?
If you look at the picture, it is like the Mori, Shimazu and so on were reckt and the Koreans and Ming were not. When in practice, Korea was devastated and this war contributed to the fall of the Ming dynasty. Meanwhile, in Japan, the Mori were still strong enough to oppose Tokugawa if they wanted to and the Shimazu were still pretty much independent of the rest of Japan.
>>492881
>this war contributed to the fall of the Ming dynasty.
Not really considering the fact that the Ming fell like 50 or so years later.
And due to the rebellion of its own military forces to boot.
>>492885
Didn't it financially ruin China and harmed its army? 50 years is not that much for that time and this kind of collapse.
>>492902
No. In Chinese historiography, it was actually part of the 3 Campaigns of the Wanli Emperor's reign. That's how little they thought about it. Hell the Mongol War was their pride and joy.
The financial collapse was largely due to corruption at court. Not to mention the overprivatization of Chinese economy at the time.
>>492902
I wouldn't say their army was 'harmed' either since they gave a pretty damn good account of themselves against the Japanese. Most of the successful generals who fought in Korea survived the war and kept on kicking until getting rekt by Nurhaci at Sarhu.
>>492944
Didn't the Chinese lose 30,000 soldiers in Sacheon alone? Sure, China usually had huge armies, but 30,000 soldiers is a lot.
>>492856
Amazing.
>>492960
I think that number is a bit high, honestly. Japanese sources (and anything Turnbull spews) seem to inflate the numbers massively and 30,000 dead Chinese in one battle would've been kind of insane when the Ming didn't even break 100,000 in the amount of soldiers sent to Korea in total. 30,000~ would have been the entire Chinese army sent to siege the place too so I don't really think it's a reliable count. That being said, Sacheon (and Ulsan) were pretty disastrous outcomes. I just don't think that they--or the war itself--really screwed the Ming over all that much in the long run. They lost far more men to rebellions and Manchus than they ever did fighting the Japanese.
>>486747
>those fuckers on the elepthants fighting with vegetables
>>492960
Ming casualties was around 6,000 which also includes the self inflicted artillery mishap.
Primary sources tend to be lacking when it comes to enemy headcounts/casualties.(Chinese records of the siege of Pyongyang,Japanese records of byeokjegwan etc.)
>>486921
Suvarnabhumi Mahayuth for Mount and Blade Warband will be your best bet, I think. AoE3 with all expansions and the Wars of Liberty mod may have some SEA elements in it, though not extensively.
