Just finished reading an excerpt of the diary of Peter Hagendorf, a landsknecht who fought in the 30 Years War who obsessed over bread, I would really suggest reading it, really highlights the brutality of warfare in ye olden days i.e ridiculous child mortality and rape and pillage. (His wife even goes looting for him)
Has anyone else on /His read it? What do they think? On that note can anyone suggest any little known diaries which are quite in depth from any time period
>>393272
Would read. Is there a download link somewhere?
>>393272
>who obsessed over bread
elaborate
>>393272
>(His wife even goes looting for him)
u wot m8
>>393272
Ping Kou Zhi (roughly translates to 'The Records of Bandit Quelling) is a semi-diary written by a late Ming dynasty scholar Peng Suntai who recounts the fall of the Ming dynasty as a first hand eye witness account. He records in detail the widespread destruction and atrocities committed by the peasant rebel armies led by Li Zicheng and Zhang Xianzhong.
>>393300
This book is the only translation I know of and its not online as far as I can find, I really wish a primary source like this was free
>>393310
Basically every region he goes to he describes the areas bread, like when he goes to westphalia he talks about pumpernickel. Also he recants how at one point bread was more expensive than meat due to all the animals being slaughtered and farms burned. He also sets up a quaint bakery in a warcamp.
>>393272
If you like Conquistador stories, I recommend Bernal Díaz's The True History of the Conquest of New Spain. Díaz wrote it several years after conquering the Aztecs with Cortés, and he says that everything Cortés wrote is lies/bullshit to make himself look better in front of the king and history, so he wrote his own "true" version of what really happened.
He goes into a lot more detail of the actual daily life experiences of being a conquistador and explains how Cortés was 100x more brutal than what his own account of the trip said. Enslaving scores of women as ""translators"", brutally slaughtering entire cities, forcing the local priests to melt down priceless religious artifacts into gold/silver bars, all kinds of crazy shit, especially in Tenochtitlan.
It should be noted that the entire trip, Cortés forbid anyone to write anything down except him so that only his version of the story would be recorded in history. He threatened to execute/chop hands off anyone caught keeping a journal. Bernal Díaz had to wait many years after the expedition to write his side of the story, so you can really tell he lets out some pent up rage with Cortés's megalomania.
pic related, you see the original title page made the word VERDADERA (true) the biggest word as a fuck you to Cortés.
>>393527
I have a sneaking suspicion that Diaz didn't get enough spoils
>>393530
He died a very rich man in what is today Nicaragua. He had essentially a fiefdom, was a legitimate Lord of his land, and had a platoon of native slaves to himself. So he didn't necessarily get the shit end of the stick. He wrote the book while at his estate and then sent it back to Europe for publishing. He was more upset with how Cortés mostly narrates his entire journal in the first person as if none of the 100s of conquistadors with him had anything to do with his success. Díaz actually writes out who did what by name, talks about their ages and lives, who died and how, etc.
I had to read both journals as part of a Spanish major at my university, as well as many other early colonial authors, so I know a bit on this topic.
>>393530
Well if Cortes is going to keep all the traslators for himself then you can expect people to be pissed off.
The letters of Nehemiah Wharton, a Parliamentary soldier from the English Civil War who really hated Worcester.
Less actual combat and brutality (it's thought he died at Edgehill because no letters after that date survived, so we don't know his battle experiences) and more church burning, cheese stealing, and fatal musket accidents.
http://www.investigationsofadog.co.uk/tag/nehemiah-wharton/page/2/
>>393272
On the subject of /his/ books, what's a good source for downloading them?
My usual choices (libgen and bookz) are useless when I'm not looking for novels.
>>393484
heh heh
>>393560
Author of this post, I made a mistake. He actually lived in Guatemala and was Governor of Antigua Guatemala. His land was called an "encomienda", was given to him by Cortes personally in 1522, and he was essentially Governor of Guatemala. Still thought Cortes was an asshole, though.
>>393527
It's not like you describe it at all. Diaz praised Cortes except when it came to his greedy or self-serving actions.
>>393272
torrent link?
>>393527
great book, some part are hilarious in very black-humor way.
Is Ibn Battuta well known ?
He's quite interesting, pic related.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ibn_Battuta
>>394396
Where can I get a copy of this with maps and maybe annotations?
>>393272
There are two French works from the early 16th century. One is written from the perspective of the most premier knight of France while the other follows a noble (but poor) infantry officer throughout the wars and later sees him become Marshall of France
Full of special ops stuff, increasingly professional armies with firearms, cannons and how essentially medieval Knights still charged across the field back then.
Pierre Terrail, seigneur de Bayard
Blaise de Lasseran-Massencôme, seigneur de Montluc
both have been translated into English centuries ago.
Another good piece is the work of is written by the ex-chamberlain of the duke of Burgundy and latter adviser to the King of France detailing the latter half of the 15th century and early part of the Italian war the two above figures fought in.
Philippe de Commines
Another good work is by a Burgundian spy sent to the middle east on "pilgrimage" to spy the Ottoman empire and give information needed for a possible crusade. Interesting account of the Levant and Ottoman lands from the perspective of a early 15th century Burgundian/Frenchmen. Pic sorta related.
Bertrandon de la Broquière
