Excerpt from Japan, Vol. 5: Described and Illustrated by the Japanese

Artillery apart, the Japanese were more intelligently and effectively equipped for defensive and offensive purposes. Their armor, though heavy, did not form one piece. The brassarts and skirts were suspended loosely from the shoulders and waist, and even the hauberk was not solid, the general system being a flexible combination of metal plates and links. On horseback the bus/zi's feet were partly protected by heavy metal stirrups shaped like a high-low boot with the sides pared away. The bows, from to 7 feet long, were of great strength, and nearly every warrior, whether mounted or on foot, carried one, - skil in archery being the samurai's proudest achievement next to dexterous swordsmanship. Of the Japanese sword it is scarcely necessary to speak. Already at the time of which we write it had become the splendidly keen, deadly weapon now famed throughout the world, and its superiority to the light, poorly tempered Chinese blade was as marked as the superiority of a modern rifle to a mediaeval arquebus. Something similar may be said of the glaive. It has been common to speak of Japanese spearmen, but, in truth, the spear as a thrusting weapon never found much favor in Japan. A long glaive with crescent-shaped blade, the convex edge sharpened to the keenness of a razor, was the bus/11 5 arm, and its manipulation for slashing rather than stabbing purposes had developed into a fine art. But the very excel lence of his weapons and the value that they derived from the strength and expertness of their wielder spoiled the battle tactics of the samurai in mediaeval days. Individual skill ranked far above massed movements, and the science of combination seemed of less impor tance than the vindication of personal prowess.

For maritime warfare the Japanese were conspicuously ill-equipped. Their boats were puny affairs compared with those of the Chinese. No protection of any kind was pro vided for the rowers; they worked in a group at the stern, and in retreat must have been exposed to the full brunt of the enemy's missiles. It is plain that, up to the thirteenth or fourteenth century, no idea of naval fighting existed in Japan. If boats were used, they served merely for transport purposes, whether the aim was a raid upon an enemy's coast or the boarding of his vessel.

About the Publisher

Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com

This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.