Departments
SAMURAI
侍
samurai
Armor, Weapons, and Combat
The samurai eventually became associated with the sword; but this was a later development. Japan’s first warriors fought on horseback with bows and arrows. When fighting on foot, warriors used a wide range of weapons. One of the most unusual was the naginata, which consisted of a long wooden handle and a curved blade. The naginata could be used for stabbing, slashing, or chopping opponents.
Early Japanese armor was lightweight so that it would not slow down horses or hinder bodily movements. A combatant on horseback had to be able to easily swivel his upper body around to fire at an enemy who was off to one side or the other. Most armor consisted of small pieces of overlapping metal. Personal armor might also include a breastplate, a helmet, and a facemask.
As samurai traditions developed, combat itself became highly ritualized. It was customary for two opposing sides to begin by meeting each other at opposite ends of the battlefield. The warriors with the most fearsome reputations would then shout insults and challenges at the enemy, daring one of them to ride out and engage him in battle. This continued until the individual duels became so numerous that they intermingled into a chaotic group battle.
At some point the samurai began the gruesome practice of taking heads. After a battle, the winning side collected the heads of the enemy dead. These were later presented to their warlord to commemorate the victory.
Being beheaded was bad enough; but an even worse fate for a samurai was capture in battle. This usually meant an agonizing, humiliating death. When cornered by the enemy in a hopeless situation, committing suicide was seen as the lesser of two evils. By the 1400s, the practice of ritual disembowelment, or seppuku / 切腹, was widely established.
Japanese weapons, armor, and battle tactics evolved over time. During the ninth and tenth centuries, swords and spears began to replace bows and arrows as the weapons of choice. Within a few hundred years, the sword would even become the symbol of samurai status. The samurai custom was to wear two swords, a long katana, or combat sword, and a wakizashi—a short sword used for disemboweling oneself or severing the head of a slain enemy.
The movement from the bow to the sword necessitated a change in armor. The flexibility needed to fight effectively with a sword made suits of armor impractical. Swordsmanship also required greater visibility, so helmets and facemasks were gradually discarded.
Guns were available in Japan from the 1500s onward. However, the gun was initially shunned by most samurai for several reasons. According to the code of bushidō / 武士道, the gun—which could kill at a distance—was a cowardly weapon. In addition, most European firearms were still difficult to use, and prone to misfires. (There were, however, a few notable exceptions which proved the rule. Oda Nobunaga won the battle of Nagashino in 1575 by employing firearms en masse on the battlefield.)
Samurai fighting tactics were challenged by outsiders when Kublai Khan’s Mongul forces invaded Japan twice during the 1200s. The Monguls employed battlefield tactics for which the samurai proved unprepared. Whereas the samurai favored ritualized, man-to-man combat, the Monguls fought as units. The Monguls also had no qualms about unmanly weapons that killed an enemy from afar. Catapults and primitive explosives were both included in the Mongul arsenal. Japan was only saved from Mongul domination by two fortuitous typhoons that twice wrecked the Mongul invasion fleets.