Did Cavalry Existed in Japan?

Did Cavalry Existed in Japan?

A Samurai charging with his horse, wielding a spear with both hands.

Before reading, it is worth notice that the main purpose behind this article is to have a better understanding about the use of Cavalry Tactics during the Sengoku period and it is highly recommended to read this one in the first place.

The mighty cavalry charge; for any military history enthusiast, the image of horsemen charging into a cohesive formation is probably one of the most fascinating and heroic picture one could immagine.
In any culture, horsemen were valued as élite members of the military, and sometimes even of the society when it came to knight and samurai.
Having an horse, being able to fed it and ride it were all features of highly trained and rich warriors.

When we talk about Japanese military history, there is no debate, it is quite evident that Samurai are almost universally associated with horsemen; and for a very good reason.
In fact, through out all their history, from the Heain to the late Edo period, Samurai were required to learn Bajutsu (馬術), or the art of horsemanship.

Being the élite members of the society, they were the only soldiers able to maintain horses; even nowadays, these beautiful animals are quite expensive.

Horses and Samurai are extremely bounded together; the first Samurai were mounted archers, and it is fair to highlight that by the time Samurai were a thing, horses in Japan have been used in warfare for ages.

What is also widely know is that from the late 14th century, Samurai (and thus horseman) started to be gradually replaced by lower levy infantries as the main force of Japanese armies, until in the 16th century it was the Ashigaru, not the Samurai, the backbone of the army itself.
With the rise of infantry soldiers, cavalry started to lose importance and the Samurai dropped the bow in favor of the spear.


And this is where the debate start; did cavalry existed in Japan? Before jumping into the discussions, cavalry is a very broad term: for the sake of this article, the term cavalry would be referred to something that is the equivalent of the "military" definition of Heavy Cavalry

A Nanbu horse with a decorative harness, from 飾馬考 2巻. [1]

The "Revisionist"  Theory 

According to a wide group of academics, like T. Conlan and K. Friday to cite some of them, the existence of dedicated heavy cavalry troops has been questioned in the recent years.
The conclusion for this school of thought is quite drastic; there wasn't such a thing as heavy cavalry troops in Japan.
In this paragraph I'm going to explain the main points of this thesis:


The Horses

Within this theory, the capabilities of Japanese horses are highly undermined. Recent archaeological evidences had established the height of ancient Japanese native horses; they ranged from 105 cm to 140 cm from the gathers, or in between 10 to 14 hands, with an average of 130 cm.
There were some exceptions recorded into Japanese sources of extremely big horses that could reach even higher heights. Even today, Japanese horses are quite small, and fall inside the pony category, as many other asian horses.
In fact, they were a subspecies of Mongolian horses and indeed shares similar features like the height.
These horses were also not gilded; apparently, the Samurai liked their mounts to be wild and aggressive, although this might generate some problems.
In addition to that, they didn't used horseshoes; they actually used straw sandals called umazouri (馬草履). These sandals were used on muddy terrains.
However, the hoof of native Japanese horses are extremely hard and resilient, and thus they didn't need iron horseshoes.

An Ukiyo-e depicting Umazori, made by Utagawa Hiroshige (歌川広重)

One of the critical aspect of the whole theory was an "experiment" done by the NHK in the 1980s, and often cited inside Conlan's and Friday's works, which concluded that the Japanese horses were weak and not capable of sustaining higher speed under heavy loads.
For this test, a modern horse of 140cm height was selected, weighing 350 kg and the animal was supposed to carry a load of 95 kg, accounting for the men, his gear and the saddle.
The animal wasn't able to surpass a speed 9 km/h, and it didn't sustain such pace for a long period, dropping into a trot almost immediately.

In addition to that, there is the testimony of Luis de Frois, a Jesuit who visited Japan during the 16th century:

"Among us, one fights on horseback; the Japanese dismount when they fight."

After reading these points, it is quite evident that the prowess of the Japanese horses and their riders is quite resized!
However there are some critical flaws in this points which would be explained later on.

Two Japanese horses in full harness, from 古今要覧稿. [37]

The Terrain

Japan is heavily mountainous; almost 70% of its surface is covered by mountains, and even nowadays there are a lot of forest: two environmental characteristics that don't suit cavalry troops at all.
This is actually one of the strongest point of the whole theory.

However there are some facts that need to be addressed.
Although some battles did took place into mountains, a lot of them were waged into flat and plain fields; essentially, any battle that end with the suffix "-hara" (原) was actually fought on some type of field.
Famous battles like Mikatagahara, Shitaragahara (better known as the battle of Nagashino) or Sekigahara were actually fought in some relatively flat plains, or at least some type of terrain that would have not hindered horses troops.
( Yes; those battles were not randomly chosen!).

This is a topographic map of Japan; roughly speaking, the "yellow zones" would not have been suitable for cavalry maneuvers.

A similar country that share this highly mountainous terrain is Korea; about 70% of its land is covered by mountains too. In fact the situation of the terrain is highly comparable to the Japanese one.



Counter Arguments & the "Traditionalist" Theory

Although the debate is still going on, and the revisionist thesis still enjoy a lot of popularity among Japanese and non-Japanese scholars, the traditionalist theory, the one that support the idea of the Japanese using heavy cavalry troops is by far the most accurate, logic and reliable.
In fact there are a lot of flaws in the aforementioned opposite thesis.
After reading about the "alleged" very poor performances of these horses, one would note that using them on warfare would have been an hindrance rather than an asset.
There was no major speed advantage, and being on a slow horse would have meant being an easy target for the various skirmishers on the battlefield.

However, horses were still carried to war in the 16th century. There are many armies reports that listed the amount of horses, divided in between pack animals and war horses and almost any army used them to some extent.

In fact the experiment done in the 1980s was tremendously inaccurate. Recently, the NHK did again another test but this time with a trained Kiso horse. The size was the same of the previous test, and the animal was ridden by a man with armor and other gears, for a total weight of circa 92 kg.
The horse was required to run 100 m at full speed.
For comparison, a modern thoroughbred of 157 cm carrying the same man was required to run the same distance.

The result was quite impressive: the speed of the Japanese horse was of 30 km/h, about the same speed of the thoroughbred! ( The differences between the two was less than one second).

A picture taken from the test where an armored horseman ride the Kiso horse, source here

In addition to that test, the actual "maneuverability" of the two horses was compared inside a "slalom path"; being smaller and "compact", the Kiso horses was best suited for this challenge and was able to turn quickly from one direction to another compared to the other horse.

As for the endurance of the animal, a test done by the Nihon Kacchuu Kiba Kenkyuukai (日本甲冑騎馬研究会) established that a trained Kiso horse was able to run for 1 km with an average speed of 21 km/h carrying an heavy armored men, and it was able to run for about 3.5 km before being exhausted.

With this recent tests in mind, it is quite clear that the Japanese Horses didn't have problem of speed or endurance at all!

However this is only a fraction of the whole picture; during the Sengoku period, horses and men were trained for warfare. Beside this, the list of extincted Japanese horses is quite long, and thus it is impossible to reconstruct with precision the size, the actual species or the various features of the war horses the Samurai used.

It is also worth mentioning the fact that horses of 130 and 140 cm, in the 16th century, were far from being considered small. The Mongols, and possibly the Ming had similar horses, and even in Europe the horses used by Gustav Adolph were of this height! All of these cultures used these horses to charge.
In fact, although the Mongols are quite famous for their light cavalry, nevertheless heavy Mongolian cavalry was a thing, and they actually overloaded their horses compared to the Japanese. Considering how similar the two families of horses are, it is quite impossible to claim that the Japanese ones were incredibly inferior.

A Mongol mounted lancer, with heavy armor. Even the horse is armored.

To further consolidate the performance of these horses, Engelbert Kaempfer in "History of Japan - together with a description of the kingdom of Siam"  in the late 17th century, wrote that:

"Some of theme (horses) were not inferior in shape, swiftness and dexterity to the Persian breed".

More focused on the topic of this article, countering the aforementioned testimony of Luis de Frois, there is the account written by Ōta Gyūichi (太田牛一) in the Shinchō kōki (信長公記):

"[...]Obata’s troop from western Kōzuke, who wore red battle dress. Warriors of the Kantō are skilled horsemen, and these samurai were no exception. Their tactic was to ride their horses straight into the enemy midst. To the beat of their war drums, they came charging."

This description written by a veteran add more value to this thesis, compared to the one of Luis de Frois, which wasn't neither Japanese nor a soldier. Beside, it is quite clear that the warriors in the Kantō were used to utilize shock cavalry as Ōta described.



The Terrain

As previously mentioned, Japan is highly mountainous, just as Korea. However, the Korean had a strong cavalry tradition along their history, including heavy cavalry as well.
During the Imjin war, despite the terrain being mountainous, the initial Ming counter attack against the Japanese army was cavalry based; although it wasn't completely effective, they were still able to use their horses to fight.

In fact, despite Japan share a very similar terrain of Korea, there are zones in which plains and fields are more common; the Kantō area. It was in this region that this type of cavalry existed.


Conclusions

A cavalry charge from an Edo period book, from the chronicles of the Takeda, 甲陽軍鑑. 巻第二十

After this long article, I hope that the situation is quite clear; heavy cavalry existed in Japan.
This thesis is supported by several accounts, the existence of horse armor (although rarely used) and the performance of Japanese horses perfectly capable of delivering a charge.
However, it is fair to highlight important facts;

Although it was used, these shock troops were only used with great efficiency by the clans in the eastern and north-eastern Japan, like the Takeda or the Hōjō and to some extent the Date and the Uesugi whenever the terrain was suited.
In fact, at Shibatagahara or Mikatagahara cavalry charges were delivered while at Kawanakajima, the cavalry troops dismounted to fight on the mountain.

Clans that were located in the south like the Shimazu or the Ōtomo didn't use these types of tactics, and the "cavalry" in these regions operated as mounted infantry.
So it was indeed a minority in the perspective of the whole Japanese clans.

To better understand the tactics used by these "cavalry" clans, you can read go on with my cavalry tactics article.

Hope that this long "debunking" reading was worth your time! If you like the article please feel free to share it, and for any questions there is a comment section below.

Gunbai