Feudal Europe vs. Feudal Japan

The Japanese tradition of importance in hygiene dates back to the feudal era.

European importance of hygiene dates back to the Ancient Greeks.

>Japanese have the win

No armor and sword with shit hand protection vs armor, shield, and sword with reasonable hand protection.

No user, quit watching anime.

I cant speak for the japs but European's didn't bathe much bro

medieval Japan probably put a higher importance on baths compared to Europe at the time, thought the phrase "smelly gooks" makes me think that was not what the poster was getting at.

>comparing ancient Greece to medieval europe
And? There written accounts from foreigners about Japanese cleanliness. Meanwhile hygiene in Europe wasn't widely practiced until the industrial revolution. Everyone but the elite were to modern standards, "dirty". The Japanese were anything but "smelly gooks".

ALL THESE COMPARISIONS ARE VERY DUMBASS

JAPS AVERAGE HEIGHT IS ONLY 5'2 BACK THEN

>Meanwhile hygiene in Europe wasn't widely practiced until the industrial revolution.
A black legend/urban myth on par with "Europeans thought the earth was flat."

The average knight from the early Middle Ages to the High Middle Ages was 5'4. Vikings were usually about 5'8 on average. The average Japanese warrior was usually around 5'2 to 5'5 during the same eras. So it's not like it's THAT big of an advantage.

Anyhow, pre-Sengoku Jidai, any European knight would thrash a samurai. Put 1066-era Normans in Japan of that same year, you're gonna have a new French-speaking aristocracy in those islands. Europeans had superior weapons, armor designs, and didn't do ritualized combat like Japan do. During the Mongol invasions of Japan, the samurai were shocked that their foes didn't step forward and accept a challenge of one-on-one combat. Japanese tactical doctrine was a joke, back then to WW2.

The only time that samurai can conceivably defeat European knights was at the end of the Middle Ages/early Modern Age when the arquebus was introduced to Japan.

>didn't do ritualized combat like Japan do. During the Mongol invasions of Japan, the samurai were shocked that their foes didn't step forward and accept a challenge of one-on-one combat

That's a rather gross misrepresentation of early medieval Japanese tactics. Not all combat was ritualized, the same accounts the describe ritualized combat also describe night raids and arson.

While Mongol tactics were initially hard to deal with the Japanese soon compensated and the two campaigns were mostly a mix of draws and victories for the Japanese

That painting you posted is from the late 19th century and is depicting a Harem bath in Egypt

Do you know that most of europe had no sewers or paved streets?

>all this talk over bathing when even today japanese families all use the same water when bathing

>implying feudal Japan and sewage and paved streets
Kys. Europe had far more than Nippon.

>Not all combat was ritualized, the same accounts the describe ritualized combat also describe night raids and arson.
I know, but the best Japanese tacticians were the ones that dealt with the Emishi in northern Honshu. The Emishi excelled in hit-and-run attacks, to which the Japanese switched from infantry-based armies to mounted fighters with bows and curved swords. Prior to the Emishi conflicts, the Japanese had straight swords.

But outside of border skirmishes with the Emishi, Japan only had the Genpei War in-between the Yamato's disastrous expedition to Korea and the Mongol invasions as a serious threat to fight. So their tactics would not be up to par to what Anglo-Saxon England, Normandy, Brittany, the rest of the French kingdom, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Byzantium, Muslim and Christian Iberia, the Italian peninsula and islands, Hungary, Bulgaria, and the Kievan Rus had from 8th century to the 12th century.

>While Mongol tactics were initially hard to deal with the Japanese soon compensated and the two campaigns were mostly a mix of draws and victories for the Japanese
This surprised me when I read accounts of what happened in the first invasion attempt. A lot of people don't give credit to the die-hard tenacity and daring attacks that the Japanese did on the Mongol fleet. The Japanese fiercely resisted any Mongol attempt to establish a foothold until the invaders decided to retire back to their ships and got wrecked by a storm. Those initial days were critical to Japan's survival.

>Europeans
>Hygiene

How about no?

My peoples' original word for whites translates as "the smelly ones". The second translated as "the lost ones" cuz they always arrived asking for directions.

>Trusting Japs
Your first problem

At least it didn't have black legends to shut it down

At least Japs are more trustworthy than chinks

Only muslims could compete with European knights

I do admit, I really like the aesthetics of Muslim arms and armor the most.

knights didn't exist in muslim society.

They had the faris, which was roughly the equivalent to Europe's knights as well as slave-soldiers like ghulams and mamlukes. Arab treatises on horsemanship, swordfighting, archery, lance/spear-wielding was as rigorously drilled and codified with ethos like chivalry and knighthood.

well that's the thing, there tactics were not unsophisticated. While they didnt have the sohpisticated infantry tactics of the contenent they had access to Chinese texts on warfare and they fought in very flexible and mobile formations. They only had to wait for the mongols to make a mistake or leave an opening, or alternatively set up fortifications to control key areas like the beachhead.

Given there home turf advantage their victory was probably inevitable. Even if the Mongolian armies penetrated into central Kyushu they would find themselves in unfamiliar mountains with small groups of enemies on all sides, and a central army waiting for an opening

What baffles me is why didn't the Japanese incorporate the crossbow like the Chinese did? There's legit accounts of early Japan utilizing them in limited amounts, but it got abandoned in favor of the yumi. Why not utilize both?

Daily reminder that the japs could only united themselves through the helps from the Europeans.

that guy looks even less armored than a samurai. a cataphract would be a better alternative.

Are you talking about the jap or the euro tho?

That is still a matter of debate, if I had to guess it probably had something to do with the disappearance of massed formations of infantry for a few hundred years.

Yeah, but a crossbow is a great weapon to use in defending a fortress. And it requires less training and time to utilize than making a guy into an archer.

>massed formations of infantry
Pretty sure that if the early Japanese ever faced the Ancient Greeks or the Romans, they would've been fucked. They didn't equip themselves with shields post-Yayoi Period.

>The average knight from the early Middle Ages to the High Middle Ages was 5'4.
Nice made up numbers.

>5'8 vikings
are you actually fucking autistic or what? where'd you get these numbers

Most soliders of that period were at least semiprofessionals. It could also have hand to do with mateiral problems or some other thing.

>Pretty sure that if the early Japanese ever faced the Ancient Greeks or the Romans, they would've been fucked. They didn't equip themselves with shields post-Yayoi Period.

That isn't true, and even when the shield was mostly abandoned they still made use of large mobile barricades, and as is often said early sode were like rigid small shields.

AS for the super early Japanese before the samurai were much of a thing, they had a state army in the Chinese style.

You forget that pre-1000's, European horses were quite small compared to modern breeds. It wasn't until European horses bred with North African, Levant, and Central Asian mounts that they developed into robust and powerful steeds for armored cavalrymen with lances.

If you actually look this up, poor nutrition plagued Dark Ages (500's AD and onwards) to early High Middle Ages (1000's to 1110's) populations. Even knights and nobility had problems with this when skeletal remains were examined by archaeologists. Post-1100's, Western European had a renaissance in science, living standards, and agriculture which allowed them to produce more people, better yields, and of course, gain in stature and physique. By the 12th century, the knights grew anywhere to 5'7 to 5'11 which was considered a good height in those days. Very rarely would you get guys like Charlemange (6'3) or Harald Sigurdsson (7 feet).

books.google.com/books?id=qDyOAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA163&dq=vikings height&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwis3fPOl7fTAhXMKCYKHRbiDa0Q6AEIKjAB#v=onepage&q=vikings height&f=false

books.google.com/books?id=HY_klT7NjvAC&pg=PT249&dq=vikings height&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwis3fPOl7fTAhXMKCYKHRbiDa0Q6AEIPDAE#v=onepage&q=vikings height&f=false

It's called reading and research.