Fake or real? 40 Spanish defeat 1000 Japanese/Chinese Pirates with full samurai?

[ButlerKing]

Where can I find this source? he claims that history proves Spanish fencing were superior to Japanese martial arts. Also the comments he made were exaggerated but is there any truth to this?

[ButlerKing]

I found it! (I remembered I saw this wiki before)

However wikipedia claimed they were mostly Chinese peasants and fishing villagers so I guess that means they weren't Japanese.


"The 1582 Cagayan battles were a series of clashes between the Spanish colonizers of the Philippines led by Captain Juan Pablo de Carrión, and Wokou (possibly Japanese pirates) headed by Tay Fusa. These battles, which took place in the vicinity of the Cagayan River, finally resulted in a Spanish victory.

This event was the only recorded battle between European regular soldiers against samurai warriors.[citation needed]

This unique event pitted musketeers, pikemen and Spanish rodeleros against Japanese pirates who were mixture of lordless samurai (ronin), soldiers, merchants, and smugglers, and later many of them originated in China rather than Japan[1] Chinese peasants and people of fishing villages would band together to become Wako and would later make up the majority of Wokou pirates.[2] According to the History of Ming, 30% of the 16th century wokou were Japanese, with the remaining 70% being ethnic Chinese.[3][4] Spanish sources record the name of their leader as Tay Fusa, Tayfusu or Tayfuzu. This does not correspond to a Japanese name, but could refer to a medieval chieftain (大夫), called Dàfū in Chinese or Taifu in Japanese.[5] "

[Teyrn]

Not every Japanese fighting man was a samurai and the ronin themselves were often little better than desperados and I very highly doubt that they were led by someone like Takeda Shingen or Uesugi Kenshin. Pikemen and musketeers = tercio formation most likely, the most efficient military formation in Europe since the Roman-era legions. Think of a phalanx with muskets in a square formation.

[ButlerKing]

Not every Japanese fighting man was a samurai.

I be damned if Spanish humiliated the Samurai like this

I've always been a fan of Ninjas and Samurai. They are the coolest looking warriors ever

[Teyrn]

I be damned if Spanish humiliated the Samurai like this

Haha ronin were executed by the government officials in Japan if they were caught. Do you think that they were loyal samurai? Actual samurai under a daimyo never fought European soldiers; it's better to call them what they actually were: bandits, pirates, etc.

[JoeyGee8688]

It's probably more or less true. Look at this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_blood_river

[Rudel]

I've always been a fan of Ninjas and Samurai. They are the coolest looking warriors ever

I can't stand this idealization through pop culture of Asiatic warrior ethics and iconographies.

[ButlerKing]

Spanish soldiers look gay and lame. In every custom.

[Prisoner Of Ice]

It was in the tail end of the effective samurai age, and while spain had been through countless fighting to hone its soldiers. And soldiers on ships were kind of like the special forces of their day, so no big surprise.

[Teyrn]

It's probably more or less true. Look at this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_blood_river

The Japanese began to made widespread use of guns from the very beginning of their contact with Europeans but I can't say the same of bands of ronin. Oda Nobunaga was especially noteworthy for his use of musketeers:

Arquebuses were introduced to Japan in 1543 by Portuguese traders, who landed by accident on Tanegashima, an island south of Kyūshū in the region controlled by the Shimazu clan. By 1550, copies of the Portuguese arquebus referred to as "tanegashima, teppō or hinawaju" were being produced in large quantities. The tanegashima seems to have been based on snap matchlocks that were produced in the armory of Goa India, which was captured by the Portuguese in 1510[13] and within ten years of its introduction upwards of three hundred thousand tanegashima were reported to have been manufactured.[14] The tanegashima eventually became one of the most important weapons in battles all over Japan. Oda Nobunaga revolutionized musket tactics in Japan by splitting loaders and shooters and assigning three guns to a shooter at the Battle of Nagashino in 1575. Tanegashima were widely used during Hideyoshi's unification of Japan and later the Japanese invasions of Korea in 1592.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arquebus#Effectiveness

Oda was able to defeat the feared heavy cavalry of one of his main rivals, Takeda, with this stratagem.

Pretty impressive.