How did iron/roman/medieval/renaissance regulate travel?

[darkmaster]

We can, however, tell you that Samurai were not so fond of their swords when they were actual warriors, because bows are a better weapon and emphasising your swordsmanship meant downplaying your bow skill.

Source please. I am aware that Samurai were trained to use bows, particularly while riding a horse, but they also valued their swords. Of course swords were sidearms for the most part (though there was a type of sword samurai used from horseback similar to how sabres and scimitars were used) so they wouldn't be the first choice in most battles but as far as I can tell swords were still associated with samurai since well before modern times.

This, basically, Samurai were professional solders, they trained with all their weapons, all the time, every day, seven days a wee1k, because that was literally all their job entailed, fighting with weapons. Yeah, most battles started with both sides getting their bows out and firing volleys at each other, but duels were quite important in Japan and bows would do you a fat lot of good if your enemy, you know, was close enough to eviscerate you with a sword so you would by no account be lax on any of your training, ever, unless dying sounds super fun to you.


No, you did not just cite a fucking cracked article as an actual source in a discussion about history. Fuck you, cracked is a good site with funny editorials, but this is a web site that literally cited a source about how Genghis khan's brutality was probably over stated in an article about how Genghis kahn was 100% as brutal as his reputation would suggest.

Go find an actual scholastic source that can actually interpret its sources and then get back to me.

[Omegonthesane]

No, you did not just cite a fucking cracked article as an actual source in a discussion about history. Fuck you, cracked is a good site with funny editorials, but this is a web site that literally cited a source about how Genghis khan's brutality was probably over stated in an article about how Genghis kahn was 100% as brutal as his reputation would suggest.

Go find an actual scholastic source that can actually interpret its sources and then get back to me.

This is why I double checked their citations before citing them, and also cited those same citations directly. Which you would have noticed if you actually read the post before venting.

[darkmaster]

I did read the post, fuck you, find an actually reliable source because you are standing next to a guy covered in shit.

[Omegonthesane]

I did read the post, fuck you, find an actually reliable source because you are standing next to a guy covered in shit.

Maybe you missed these ones:

Citation from the above article, which emphasises how swords were a backup weapon and gives a story circa 1184 CE of a samurai running for it when he realises he has a sword against a rider.

Other citation from the above article, which admittedly (on that page anyway) just reiterates that the contemporary samurai code was the Way of the Bow and the Horse, no swords mentioned.

You know, these ones right here:

Citation from the above article, which emphasises how swords were a backup weapon and gives a story circa 1184 CE of a samurai running for it when he realises he has a sword against a rider.

Other citation from the above article, which admittedly (on that page anyway) just reiterates that the contemporary samurai code was the Way of the Bow and the Horse, no swords mentioned.

These ones:

Citation from the above article, which emphasises how swords were a backup weapon and gives a story circa 1184 CE of a samurai running for it when he realises he has a sword against a rider.

Other citation from the above article, which admittedly (on that page anyway) just reiterates that the contemporary samurai code was the Way of the Bow and the Horse, no swords mentioned.

[Chamomile]

No, you did not just cite a fucking cracked article as an actual source in a discussion about history. Fuck you, cracked is a good site with funny editorials, but this is a web site that literally cited a source about how Genghis khan's brutality was probably over stated in an article about how Genghis kahn was 100% as brutal as his reputation would suggest.

Go find an actual scholastic source that can actually interpret its sources and then get back to me.

This is why I double checked their citations before citing them, and also cited those same citations directly. Which you would have noticed if you actually read the post before venting.

What the source says is that bows pwn swords. Which is true, and bows were the primary weapon of samurai. What Cracked has wildly extrapolated out of nowhere is that samurai were not proud of their sword skills. Why wouldn't they be? The idea that people never, ever boast of any skill except the one most critical to their profession is absurd.

[Omegonthesane]

No, you did not just cite a fucking cracked article as an actual source in a discussion about history. Fuck you, cracked is a good site with funny editorials, but this is a web site that literally cited a source about how Genghis khan's brutality was probably over stated in an article about how Genghis kahn was 100% as brutal as his reputation would suggest.

Go find an actual scholastic source that can actually interpret its sources and then get back to me.

This is why I double checked their citations before citing them, and also cited those same citations directly. Which you would have noticed if you actually read the post before venting.

What the source says is that bows pwn swords. Which is true, and bows were the primary weapon of samurai. What Cracked has wildly extrapolated out of nowhere is that samurai were not proud of their sword skills. Why wouldn't they be? The idea that people never, ever boast of any skill except the one most critical to their profession is absurd.

It follows logically that if your bow is your primary weapon, and you boast too loudly about your sword, you're probably trying to draw attention away from how bad you are with your bow. However, that's not the same thing as a citation, and I'm not spending work time looking up sources, so point retracted.

[Laertes]

It's worth noting that the reason being a noble was so expensive was because their lords made it that way. Because if the nobility had free time and money, they'd plot against their lord. It was basically like that all the way up the ladder.

This.

Even fairly early on during the medieval era, the peasants and the Kings under the French system started realising that they had a common enemy in the nobility. There are records from England under early Norman rule in which the King is doing his damnedest to encourage local organisations of peasants to assert their legal rights, and the nobility disputing this because fuck you, they're my peasants and I don't want to be constrained to exploiting them through merely legal means.

This is one of (although not the only) grievances that the Magna Carta of 1215 was designed to address: the extent to which the nobility had to obey the king, and just which of the two of them had first dibs on raping the peasantry.

Under the German system it was a little different because the knights formed a distinct class rather than being merely the lower end of the nobility as they were in France. Therefore, there are records of the knights and peasants banding together when the nobility got too onerous, just as there are records of the nobles and the knights banding together to beat the peasants down. It's a multi-way balance and whomever is on top at the moment will get everyone ganging up on them.

Records, however, are always a little spotty because records tended to be kept by the Church, and you have to go a *long* way forwards (basically until the Dominicans and Franciscans started getting really politically powerful, 1300 or so) until the Church was anything but the nobility's solid ally. Monks and bishops were recruited from the nobility, they lived like nobles, they owned land like nobles and they struggled against the kings and the peasants like nobles did. Bear this in mind when you read sources, because the Church was definitely not above its own class biases.

And, not to belabor the point, but it was a complicated situation with lots of exceptions and weird little peculiarities after the fall of the Roman Empire. Roman farming technology and diet wasn't well-suited to a lot of northern climates, and there were restrictions on land clearance, the use of fertilizer, metal tools, and basic farming technology. That meant that for something like a thousand years subsistence farming yields were often pitiful, sometimes as bad as 1:1 (one grain harvested for each planted). Rents were typically fixed and in kind, because there was a shortage of coins and a lot of precious metals ended bound up in church relics and decorations.

We don't have a lot of sources about farming during the Age of Migration; however, when we get into the medieval era, paper starts to accumulate. Generally this comes from two sources: a) tax records and serfdom agreements, and b) monasteries keeping notes on which farming techniques worked and which didn't.

Briefly, since we're discussing medieval farming: The archetypical farming method was fallow-field rotation, either with two or three fields, getting on to a four-field system in the late period. This was actually pretty well adapted to heavy northern soils and cold northern climates unlike Roman systems which as Ancient History points out were better for a mediterranean climate. However, just because it's well adapted to northern soil doesn't mean that it's well adapted to all soils. Typically only about a third of land could actually be under cultivation, meaning that you got large amounts of meadow and wasteland even in the most intensively farmed areas like the Ile de France.

The verb meaning to create new farmland is "to assart." Assarting was a legally contentious issue and there are lots of surviving records urging people not to do it, or suing them for doing it. The main reason for this was, as Ancient History mentions, rent based. If I rent out four virgates to someone, and he assarts another two virgates from wasteland adjacent to that land and doesn't tell me about it then does he owe me rent on those? If he does, how do I collect it? What incentives are in place?

(A "virgate" is an area of land capable of supporting a fairly well-off serf family. Lots of serfs had only half a virgate or an even smaller area.)

Rents being in kind is a difficult thing for scholars to generalise on because it was a contentious issue at the time. Generally, cash rents rather than in-kind rents were more convenient for everybody, and wherever enough metal or other currency was available they tended to happen. (England had leather money at one point, when there wasn't enough metal.) However, cash rents also make the serfs massively less dependent on their lords and allow them to interact with the wider economy, which in turn means that the serfs are soon going to have the economic firepower to mount challenges to their lord. The smarter lords (and especially the Church, on Church-owned lands) really disliked this and so generally tried to keep it down when they could. In areas like Poland they largely succeeded; in France, no so much.

(I'm going to stop now before I start talking about medieval theories of economics and the "just price" concept they had.)

[Laertes]

This intrigues me. How would all this work in a world like D&D where the high ups have magic? I'm thinking of designing a setting around this.

It probably wouldn't work in D&D because the only way to prevent people from being able to usurp your rule is to keep them personally from being able to stab you in your face so you'd have prevent people from getting military training which is fine until you remember that you need an army because no matter how bad ass you personally are so you need an army, you could try to prevent soldiers from leveling up but good luck keeping people from deserting and possibly going on adventures to kill you once people figure out you send any unit you deem too seasoned into the meat grinder. And of course if any of your neighbors decide having more high level people is worth the risk then you're screwed because that neighbor becomes a meat grinder that can plow through your armies by opening a portal to an erupting volcano on the elemental plane of fire under your castle.

There's a technical term for this: bastard feudalism.

Normal feudalism is really just an abstracted, ritualised form of mugging. You agree to give someone more powerful than you all your goods in exchange for him not stabbing you in the face. Then he agrees to leave you with just enough to survive on the conditions that he can come back and do it again next payday.

This has positive feedback connotations, because the "more powerful" part of that largely comes from how many other people this person is mugging, and therefore having vassals leads to having more vassals. However, it also has negative feedback connotations because the more vassals he has, the less attention he can spend on checking up on each one, and so they can do under-the-table things to make themselves powerful enough to not be mugged. There's an equilibrium state here, and while it varies between historical periods, most people find it pretty quickly. In England in the late 12th century, for example, it was about five manors (roughly 1500 peasants) per landed knight.

You can get around this by having a hierarchy of vassals, but since you have no way of ensuring *their* loyalty these things tend to get very unstable indeed.

By contrast, in bastard feudalism there is no mugging because you have nothing that the mugger cares about enough to take. He doesn't need you to farm for him and he doesn't need you to fight for him. He would be just as happy if you weren't here at all. Therefore, the main thing he wants is for you to fuck off so he can concentrate on doing whatever it is that he does.

Good examples of bastard feudalism are eastern England in the early 13th century and modern-day Saudi Arabia.

England in the 13th century was in the grip of a wool price bubble. Wool is shorn from sheep who graze on grass which grows naturally, thus it requires massively less labour than medieval agriculture does. A typical half-manor which formerly needed about 100-200 peasants and produced about £10 annually now needed less than 10 peasants and also produced about £10 annually. Those few people could be employed by the lord directly as retainers, and could be hired from wherever labour is cheap and can be fired as easily. More importantly, they could be liveried (meaning in this context that their employer pays all their expenses and in return owned all their labour) so the lord didn't actually have to give a damn about local conditions. He usually didn't live on the manor, and quite frequently would go his entire life without visiting. He'd live in the town where there was nicer food and prettier tavern wenches.

Coincidentally, England in the 13th century was also awash with peasants who had been dispossessed because their lord had smashed up the villages, sowed grass in the fields and told them to fuck off because he was now going to run sheep.

Modern Saudi Arabia (and I write as one who's lived in the Gulf as child) consists of a king who owns all the oil wells, some foreign contractors who run the oil wells, and a large population who are totally insulated from that source of income. Their taxes are low because the king doesn't need them, they have almost no rights because the king doesn't need to listen to them, and their educational and economic development can be totally neglected because it doesn't contribute in any real way to the king's well being.

In the case of Saudi Arabia, the king chooses to spend vast sums on the country, but he doesn't need to. He chooses to. In a very real sense he's keeping the country as his own personal hobby, the same way that I work as an analyst and then go home and spend my money on gaming books. If he died and the next king decided that he didn't give a damn about the population, then he could quite happily let them starve without it impacting his oil revenue. If they attempted to resist, then he could hire mercenaries to kill them, much as is happening in Syria presently.

This leads to the modern concept of the "resource curse"; that is, that the discovery of easily-extracted natural resources is actually really bad for the local population because of the incentives that it gives the elites. See the Niger Delta for a good example of this.

What does this mean in D&D land? It means that the wizard overlord is going to be sitting in his tower reading books, he'll have some hired minions to go out and gather mana crystals or whatever else he can't just Wish for, and everybody else in the country just isn't necessary.

If he's a soft-hearted dude or there's a strong religious code restricting him, he may look after them to the extent that it doesn't meaningfully impact on his wizarding, bearing in mind that "look after" might mean something very different to him than it does to them. Model this after modern-day Saudi Arabia.

If he generally doesn't care one way or another, then they'll probably be driven away from any resource that he might plausibly need, and allowed to scratch a living in the remaining area. If he ever decides that he does need somewhere they live, then off they fuck. Model this after the Native Americans in the mid 19th century US and the First Nations in late 19th century Canada.

If he's an asshole or they dared lift a hand in defiance to the point where it actually impeded him, then the people will only survive to the extent that they can flee to somewhere they can hide or where he can't be bothered to chase them. Model this after the fate of indigenous tribes of Australia.

In all three cases, there will be a small population who work directly for the wizard, providing to his needs. If he chooses to live luxuriously, this might be thousands of people; however it will probably not be a self-sustaining population since he'll want more attractive young people, fit soldierly types and intelligent managers than exist in a normal population. These may be hired from far afield, or they may simply be summoned magically.

That's what D&D would be like, if wizards ran the world. Which brings me back to my original thesis: feudalism fucking sucks.

[TheNotoriousAMP]

We can, however, tell you that Samurai were not so fond of their swords when they were actual warriors, because bows are a better weapon and emphasising your swordsmanship meant downplaying your bow skill.

Source please. I am aware that Samurai were trained to use bows, particularly while riding a horse, but they also valued their swords. Of course swords were sidearms for the most part (though there was a type of sword samurai used from horseback similar to how sabres and scimitars were used) so they wouldn't be the first choice in most battles but as far as I can tell swords were still associated with samurai since well before modern times.

Okay, so potting this in spoilers to reduce the wall of text. Japanese history time.

The samurai were originally mounted light cavalry who were first used during the Ainu wars in the 500-700 BC, when the Japense kingdoms began the full conquest of the main Island. During this time Japan is basically China-lite, copying much of the country whole sale. Heck, even the Katana itself doesn't appear until the 900's ish, right now swords are mostly straight.

Then shit starts going down. Buddhist monasteries began to really rise in power and destabilize the Emperor. In response samurai clans become more and more important. Now warfare is inter Japanese and it basically goes something like this: burn shit down and avoid fighting whenever possible. When people do fight, its as heavily armored horse archers, who ride forward seeking enemies of noble birth to duel with. However, this only really goes on at the start of a battle and is done by the uber rich. Most samurai fight on foot with naginata.

This goes on for a bit and then you get Mongol ex machina. This is the sea change. Suddenly mounted noble archers meet massed foot archers and lose. So the samurai begin transitioning away from the yumi (bow) and to melee. Things are peaceful though so everyone is cool.

And then the Sengoku era breaks out in full force in the 1400's. Its hard to overestimate how big a change this is. In the space of 150 years, the samurai go from small bands of warriors leading masses of poorly equipped, motivated and paid ashigaru to probably the most powerful military force on Earth.

With the increasing number of soldiers on the battlefield, the Samurai now turn to the spear, the yari. Ashigaru take over massed archery, though some samurai still use bows to bring down high ranking enemies, think snipers and unit leaders. Most, however, fight on foot on battle lines.

Big thing to remember, anything other than a gladius type short straight sword is shit in massed combat, you need too much space. While on horseback a katana could be kinda useful, but a spear much more so.

By the 1560's, samurai warfare is really beginning to find its footing. Samurai fight both in units as well as leading ashigaru regiments, who are becoming more and more professional. There's a surprisingly sophisticated command and control system. Ashigaru are mostly pikemen, bowmen and increasingly gunmen, and they are not only given position at the front of the line, the traditional place of honor, but leading ashigaru was actually a very high ranking job. Most samurai, however, are well armored spearmen, with some serving as cavalry. Spear, bow, gun, with naginata becoming increasingly rare and the bow is being quickly replaced by guns.

And then you get the end of the era, in the 1620's, when at its peak the Tokugawa can call upon close to 250,000 professional solders, pikemen, mounted pistoliers and cavalry, spears, and probably the best gunline besides maybe the Swedes.

In short, the katana is never in any era anything less than a prestige weapon and a side arm. Its an officer's pistol, basically, this guy is a soldier obey him. However, when in actual battle they'd use bows and naginata's, all the way to guns and spears.

[Laertes]

In short, the katana is never in any era anything less than a prestige weapon and a side arm. Its an officer's pistol, basically, this guy is a soldier obey him. However, when in actual battle they'd use bows and naginata's, all the way to guns and spears.

The cult of the katana really peaked afterwards, during periods like the Shinshinto. Once the samurai had stopped being badass warriors and had started being aristocrats who kept the trappings of their badass warrior past, they really went to town on the myths of their own heritage. This is the period during which you got incredibly elaborate replicas made of ancient legendary weapons, and people would carry them around whilst strutting like peacocks because they have cool kit.

[Username17]

And then the Sengoku era breaks out in full force in the 1400's. Its hard to overestimate how big a change this is. In the space of 150 years, the samurai go from small bands of warriors leading masses of poorly equipped, motivated and paid ashigaru to probably the most powerful military force on Earth.

In 1450, the entire population of Japan was 10 million. In 1453, Mehmed II brought 300,000 soldiers to a battle. The most powerful military force on Earth during that period was the Ottoman Empire. Anyone who says anything differently is talking crazy talk. The runner up for the 15th century is of course the Ming Dynasty. They marched armies around that had half a million soldiers in them, but those were kind of bullshit armies, unlike the Ottoman armies which had military discipline and cannons and shit. If you move the timeline forward to 1550, then obviously the most powerful military in the world is Spain. What with them literally fighting million man armies and winning through superior badassery, technology, and tactics.

There is no point in history where Japan fields the most powerful military on Earth. It simply never happens.

-Username17

[Zinegata]

Actually, the Ming had a major artillery arm. The idea that it was a poorly armed army without muskets or artillery is a myth; that's just the fault of the Manchus actually regressing the army's technology even worse (and the Ming's general demilitarization after the 15th/16th Century).

[Username17]

Actually, the Ming had a major artillery arm. The idea that it was a poorly armed army without muskets or artillery is a myth; that's just the fault of the Manchus actually regressing the army's technology even worse (and the Ming's general demilitarization after the 15th/16th Century).

Armies that are not poorly armed and trained do not lose confrontations where they outnumber their opponents twenty five to one. We know that the Ming Dynasty had armies that were disorganized and poorly equipped because otherwise they would have easily won battles where they were literally fielding two dozen men for every one man their opponents had.

-Username17

[RadiantPhoenix]

it will probably not be a self-sustaining population since he'll want more attractive young people, fit soldierly types and intelligent managers than exist in a normal population. These may be hired from far afield, or they may simply be summoned magically.

This is where elves come from, apparently.

[Zinegata]

Actually, the Ming had a major artillery arm. The idea that it was a poorly armed army without muskets or artillery is a myth; that's just the fault of the Manchus actually regressing the army's technology even worse (and the Ming's general demilitarization after the 15th/16th Century).

Armies that are not poorly armed and trained do not lose confrontations where they outnumber their opponents twenty five to one. We know that the Ming Dynasty had armies that were disorganized and poorly equipped because otherwise they would have easily won battles where they were literally fielding two dozen men for every one man their opponents had.

-Username17

The issue with Tumu was poor preparations and logistics, not a lack of armaments like cannon.

http://ccsenet.org/journal/index.php/as ... /2472/2319

The lack of armaments is what I'm contesting, not that the Jannissaries weren't better trained or disciplined.

[Mord]

Actually, the Ming had a major artillery arm. The idea that it was a poorly armed army without muskets or artillery is a myth; that's just the fault of the Manchus actually regressing the army's technology even worse (and the Ming's general demilitarization after the 15th/16th Century).

Like all things Ming, the effective quality of their army declined precipitously after roughly 1440 due to the spread of civil unrest and various high-profile dynastic disasters (such as the Wresting the Gate Incident). It's important, though, to note that this is more a failure of organization and politics than a failure of technology.

Even though a lot is made of the Emperor cancelling all foreign missions after Zheng He's big jaunt, that didn't really mark some significant point of departure between China's potential and actual historical paths. Really, everyone was perfectly happy to continue developing the technology that would help them to continue not being killed by Mongols; check out this history of Chinese artillery, particularly the gunpowder items. The problem was that the power and prestige of the Emperors was on a long and painful decline, and so the unitary institution of the "Ming army" began to fragment. An army can't be effective if it can't stage coherent operations due to a weak command structure.

And lest we be too hard on the Ming, remember that this is the natural progression of most of the Chinese dynasties that lasted for more than a century or so: a vigorous leader unites a nation through military power; his descendants become increasingly bound by precedents set down by their predecessors while corruption in the center rises and the loci of power shift away from the capital; rebellion, civil war, and finally barbarian incursion destroy the dynasty. Thus went the Qin, Han, Song, Yuan, Ming, and Qing. (The Tang were a little bit different but still relatively close.)

[Zinegata]

In short, the katana is never in any era anything less than a prestige weapon and a side arm. Its an officer's pistol, basically, this guy is a soldier obey him. However, when in actual battle they'd use bows and naginata's, all the way to guns and spears.

The cult of the katana really peaked afterwards, during periods like the Shinshinto. Once the samurai had stopped being badass warriors and had started being aristocrats who kept the trappings of their badass warrior past, they really went to town on the myths of their own heritage. This is the period during which you got incredibly elaborate replicas made of ancient legendary weapons, and people would carry them around whilst strutting like peacocks because they have cool kit.

Also, just to be clear: Yeah, the Samurai sword really is more of a ceremonial thing than an actual battlefield weapon, and people really need to stop thinking that charging your enemy with drawn swords on foot is a good idea. I don't think that kind of battle plan ever worked well in fact.

On the plus side, the literacy rate of Japan and the enormous focus on non-military arts for the Samurai class helped spur along the Meiji industrialization, so all that Haiku didn't go to waste entirely.

[Zinegata]

It's important, though, to note that this is more a failure of organization and politics than a failure of technology.

The point was to show that the technology and equipment was there, the organization and politics is what was lacking.

[Laertes]

On the plus side, the literacy rate of Japan and the enormous focus on non-military arts for the Samurai class helped spur along the Meiji industrialization, so all that Haiku didn't go to waste entirely.

A samurai must be strong in the arts of peace to be strong in the arts of war.

[Mord]

It probably wouldn't work in D&D because the only way to prevent people from being able to usurp your rule is to keep them personally from being able to stab you in your face so you'd have prevent people from getting military training which is fine until you remember that you need an army because no matter how bad ass you personally are so you need an army, you could try to prevent soldiers from leveling up but good luck keeping people from deserting and possibly going on adventures to kill you once people figure out you send any unit you deem too seasoned into the meat grinder. And of course if any of your neighbors decide having more high level people is worth the risk then you're screwed because that neighbor becomes a meat grinder that can plow through your armies by opening a portal to an erupting volcano on the elemental plane of fire under your castle.

I think you're understating the sheer power of mages versus warriors. Mages come from institutions of learning or religion such as universities or monasteries. These can only exist in settled and peaceful societies, which makes most mages naturally reactionary in their politics. (Druid hippies obviously an exception.)

The magical elite will support the government, either because the local landowners feed them (apprentices, lands, castles, materials, literal food) or because they are the landowners. They will be perfectly happy to maintain a cadre of relatively high-level fighters to serve as bodyguards, tax collectors, and general constabulary - basically to do the stuff they can't be bothered with but that they still need to have happen to preserve their favorable social conditions.

Any halfway competent organization of mages could maintain a mercenary army powerful enough to crush a migrating orc tribe or peasant rebellion without being any real threat to its Cloudkill-knowing Masters. The only real threat to an established organization of mages in D&D is other mages (either a vastly powerful rogue or a rival college) or possibly an entire kingdom's worth of artillery.

There is basically no way that a monarchial/feudal state of any substance in D&D would have a government that is not either run by mages or that operates without the support and consent of its local mages. The Venerable Royal College Of Magick may nominally serve the King and the kingdom, but you bet your ass that if the King does something they don't like, there's going to be a new King pretty soon.

Casters are so OP they distort civilization itself.

[TheNotoriousAMP]

In 1450, the entire population of Japan was 10 million. In 1453, Mehmed II brought 300,000 soldiers to a battle. The most powerful military force on Earth during that period was the Ottoman Empire. Anyone who says anything differently is talking crazy talk. The runner up for the 15th century is of course the Ming Dynasty. They marched armies around that had half a million soldiers in them, but those were kind of bullshit armies, unlike the Ottoman armies which had military discipline and cannons and shit. If you move the timeline forward to 1550, then obviously the most powerful military in the world is Spain. What with them literally fighting million man armies and winning through superior badassery, technology, and tactics.

There is no point in history where Japan fields the most powerful military on Earth. It simply never happens.

-Username17

Yeaaaaaah, no. The Ottomans at most were able to put about 50 to 60 thousand soldiers on the field and even then that's calling upon fucking everyone and scraping the bottom of the barrel (bashi bazouks). The Ottomans simply lacked the land, the food and the organization to put anything more onto the field. The 300,000 soldier shit is bullshit mostly written about during the 1500's because medieval historians, much like greek historians, had a huge fucking hard on for inflating enemy numbers. Kinda surprised you bought into that, Frank.

As for the Spanish, they were able to put about 25,000 to 30,000 on the field and they do come up a close second, but they lose on several fronts. 1- command and control. 2- Artillery isn't that good except for sieges until the rise of the "regiment gun" with the swedes in the 1630's. 3- Overly rigid formations, this works in the Northern European system of set piece, linear battles and siege warfare. This does not work against armies trained and designed to move quickly and redeploy as needed.

The Ming, finally, are a mixed bag. They had a vast artillery arm, but had a lot of trouble transporting it and most of it was obsolete, small Calibre weapons. Their infantry was alright, but their cavalry tended to be undisciplined. Just read up on the Korean wars of 1592-1600 to see what I mean. They were capable of fighting quite well and did tend to give a decent showing, but they had several core weaknesses. 1- logistics, Ming China was highly corrupt and disorganized, meaning moving vast numbers of troops around was a pain. 2- Weakness in handguns. China really didn't put that much effort into the harquebus, preferring to rely on their artillery. This meant that they tended to lack mobile firepower and the Japanese were often able to use their handgunners to blunt Chinese attacks, as well as quickly develop offensives, while Chinese armies tended to be more ponderous. 3- Very mixed troop quality. Japanese armies tended to be more consistent and professional, considering they had far more combat experience. Simply put, the Ming had a decent core of professional troops, but they were really not in any position to project force on more than one front.

We can see this in their intervention in the Korean campaign. Though they initially gave a good showing, when striking against strung out Japanese formations, during the second invasion, when the two actually clashed on the field far more, the Japanese tended to be better. Plus, the Japanese could put more professionals on the field than the chinese, with a better logistical train behind them. Unorganized, badly supported, trained and equipped troops aren't worth anything, especially on the medieval field of battle. Otherwise, the Indians would have thrown out the Delhi sultantes very quickly.

Meanwhile, at Sekigahara, the two opposing alliances are able to put about 160,000 men on the field, and mind you these are trained, professional soldiers. At the siege of Osaka, which is really the last battle of the Samurai and essentially involves everyone they can get, there's something like 260,000 men on the field. We can verify these, much like we can verify the actual turkish numbers, because we have the Tokugawa tax records, so we know how many men each lord was able to field and how much they were paid for.

Plus, this ignores the biggest advantage the Japanese had. The Japanese Sengoku army had a sophisticated chain of command, and, unlike in the European tradition, the main general stayed behind the front and organized the fighting from there. Between the back banners, using high ranking leaders in all formations, not just noble ones, better integration of music for command purposes and dedicated message runners, Japanese commanders had a far more flexible army at their disposal. Just compare this to many European battles, where the cavalry races ahead to do fuck all and doesn't return to support the infantry.

While they may have lacked the rigid power of the tercio, they had a superior harquebusier corps to the Spanish and were more willing to use them in a primary role. This is especially true in sieges, where they mastered the art of suppressive fire while covering attacks on walls.

The main problem is, of course, their lack of true heavy cavalry, but the Spanish were never too big on that either. The French, actually, would have been more of a threat in that regard.

Numbers don't win battles. Organization, equipment and logistics do. That's why the Tokugawa shogunate probably had the most powerful military force in the world around the 1630's. While European armies were fucking about in Germany, putting maybe 60,000 men combined on the field, the Tokugawa's could draw upon at least a 100,000 men before Osaka and more afterwards. Of these they could control them better, and unlike the mercenary forces of Europe, actually rely upon them. The Ming are a close second though, with the Ottoman's not far behind.

[deaddmwalking]

On the plus side, the literacy rate of Japan and the enormous focus on non-military arts for the Samurai class helped spur along the Meiji industrialization, so all that Haiku didn't go to waste entirely.

Haiku as a waste?
English teachers disagree
Students stay busy

Regarding the relative might of the Japanese army, I don't think there is sufficient proof for it in 1630s. I'm familiar with Japanese military ability and demand to be taken seriously especially in the late 19th and the 20th century (1898 war with China, 1905 war with Russia). But to claim that the Japanese were the most capable military I think you'd have to show how they improved between the 1590s and the 1630s. During the Korean Invasion, they showed that they were not a juggernaut.

If you rate power only by the means to defend oneself, I don't think that Japan would qualify as number one, but that's the only way I think it MIGHT make sense.

If you rate power as your ability to use military operations to inflict your goals on opposing forces, then Spain gets to claim the World Heavy Weight championship.

But there are other ways to measure power. I wouldn't dismiss the Dutch in this period. Certainly if you're measuring power based on population, the Dutch were hitting well above their weight-class.

[Mord]

That's why the Tokugawa shogunate probably had the most powerful military force in the world around the 1630's.

Before sakoku really kicked in by the end of the 1630s, Japan was keeping up with the Europeans fairly well in the employment of firearms and gunpowder artillery. But that changed pretty quickly starting in 1640, not necessarily because the Shogunate refused to use guns, but because local R&D on firearms ground to a snail's pace compared to the West.

I'd also object to the idea that the Tokugawa had the most powerful military force in the world three decades after their last major battle and while the demilitarization of the samurai caste was well underway. Not to mention that by 1600, the samurai caste had been gutted by multiple generations of internecine conflict and the Korean campaigns. I'd peg Hideyoshi's army of 1590, prior to the invasion of Korea, as being much stronger than the Tokugawa army in 1630.

Also, Gustavus Adolphus was kicking around Europe in 1630. I really don't see how you can compare Japan to Sweden at that moment in history.

[kzt]

IIRC, the rotating volley fire tactics that was used to destroy the Takeda cavalry at the Battle of Nagashino predated any such tactics used in Europe. However that was 1575, not sure of the situation in 1630.

[Zinegata]

The slowdown in Japanese firearm development was a direct result of the Shogunate's policies, actually.

The Shogunate essentially monopolized all gun purchases, and then systematically reduced its own gun purchases until the gun-making industry essentially atrophied and died - reduced to making a few dozen novelty handguns annually.

More importantly. it was not really the Japanese slowing down in R&D, as there really wasn't much more to be done to improve the matchlock muskets; and the real secret of muzzle-loaded musketry anyway was figuring out it required discipline and drill to make them effective. To reach a new class of weapons entirely new manufacturing processes and materials had to be available - and that would have to wait until the industrial revolution.

To elaborate: It took the West about fifty to a hundred years to move from matchlocks and arquebus to all-flintlock armies; and in that same period the pike was finally superceded by the expedient of adding a pointy knife at the end of a musket. The Thirty Years War, the Great Northern War, the English Civil War, the Dutch Revolt, and a whole bunch of Bourbon vs Hapsburg wars were all fought with musket & pike. It wasn't until the 1700s that it was replaced by the flintlock + bayonet combo in most modern armies; most notably starting with the War of Spanish Succession.

The flintlocks then stayed in service for another hundred years - from the War of Spanish Succession to the last days of Napoleon - and it wasn't until the industrial revolution in the second half of the 1800s that we saw mass production of breech-loading rifles; with the American Civil War serving as the transition between the muzzle-loading past and the breech-loading future.