Gunbai: Ancient Japanese Warfare

Cagayan Battles of 1582: Debunking the Hoax  A picture taken from the Spanish comics "Las Espadas Del Fin Mundo" depicting the fictitious battle. Before starting to write anything about the Cagayan battle, I would like to make a premise: I'm not really a fan of the kind of debates you could find on the internet about hypothetical battles, deadliest warrior scenarios or something like that. Honestly, I find the entertainment value of such discussions healthy only when they are educated and based on logic, historical accuracy and knowledge of the topic people want to discuss. However , the average quality of these debates is usually extremely low : people make their arguments based on wrong pop culture stereotypes and " fanboyism", which turn the whole discussion very quickly into a toxic one, where people just insult each other. In my Blog here you will never find anything similar; this project was born with the purpose to create a place on the internet...

Sengoku Period Warfare - Part 4: Battle tactics The death of Yamamoto Kansuke during the 4th battle of Kawanakajima, from  永禄四年九月四日川中島ノ合戦山本勘介入道討死ノ図 by Utagawa Kuniyoshi  After writing in my previous post how the several types of units worked inside the Japanese armies of the late 16th century, in this article I want to describe the main battle tactics used by the whole army, which means how the aforementioned units worked together to achieve victory or to avoid being severely defeated. I'm pretty sure that despite my efforts, I won't list all the various strategies available in that time period, mainly because the majority of them weren't actually codified or recorded, and some are hidden inside old war manuals; it's also worth writing that this tactics are only available on  field battles , and not sieges or naval warfare. Before reading through this post, I'll suggest you to have a look at my previous articles on the Sengoku period warfare: Sengoku Peri...

Sengoku Period Warfare: Part 1 - Army and Formations A detail from   関ヶ原合戦屏風 , late 19th century. The Sengoku period ( 戦国時代 ) is generally speaking the most interesting, intense and famous period of Japanese history. We are all familiar with the classic picture of the Ashigaru arquebusiers formation, or with the fierce Samurai horseman wielding a spear and names like Oda Nobunaga or Takeda Shingen are among the most celebrated Samurai ever existed. So I decided to dedicate a series of article talking about the military history behind the most famous warlords and battles of this period. This one will be dedicated to the Army and the classic "Battle Formations" of the Sengoku Jidai . But first we need to clarify few things ; The Sengoku period is an awfully long period which roughly goes from the 1467 to the 1600 depending on the sources and the only red line connecting more than 100 years of history is that the various provinces of Japan were constantly at w...