What do we know about Euorpean vs Japanese (or even for that matter Chinese) swordsmanship against each other?
There are accounts of early Portugese, as well as those who colonized Macau, being able to hold of Japanese samurai with the rapier and small shield. Then again, there are accounts of some being hit 5 times with the piercing strike of a rapier, and still being able to deliver a slashing blow that ends the fight.
What were the experiences with European vs Asian swordsmanship? Did this have any influence on the adoption of the cutlass in the later 17th century?
>There are accounts of early Portugese, as well as those who colonized Macau, being able to hold of Japanese samurai with the rapier and small shield Just curious but I'd like to see those accounts.
Debunked and the dude posts a link to a fucking historium.com thread without a single source, holy hell haha.
As to the question itself.
They were probably on par, katanas were excellent blades, but so were the European blades.
Note that the Euro's in Asia at the time did not carry just rapiers, but sideswords and arming swords.
Anything akin to even 15th century one handers would be easily seen wielded by a Portuguese sailor.
Brayden Anderson
There are not accounts of duels between the Portuguese and the Japanese in the 16th century. There were some navel battles and some oral histories among some Japanese martial arts schools. (apparently the Japanese war swords were too heavy so they eventually had some much lighter swords made which brought them to parity) But these stories are not easily confirmed.
We do know that as soldiers Europeans at the time considered the Japanese not worth a direct confrontation.
We know more about interactions in the 19th century, were it seems most Europeans were impressed with what they saw.
>The discussion is just more sourceless blabber. Not my fault if you can't read. Whoever wrote the Wiki article clearly didn't scrutinize the original source material.
There was actually two separate naval engagements,one shouldn't be conflated with the other.
>The Indian crew was discharged on account of not having the supplies which were lost on the galley. Here we have an unknown amount of native crew that provided the third hand account.
>They said that the Japanese were attacking them with eighteen champans, which are like skiffs. It's physically impossible to fit 1,000 men on 18 sampans. The forum poster also provided period artwork showing a naval engagement between Chinese/Wokou sampans.
>They were defending themselves well although there were but sixty soldiers with the seaman, and there were a thousand of the enemy, of a race at once valorous and skilful. On the Spanish side we have 60 soldiers(not 40) and additional sailors. Assuming a maximum load of 10 men per sampan the Japanese pirates had 180 men.
Both sides had additional ships/men that did not see military action.
You think they were using those river sampans in open Ocean against Spanish carracks lmao?
Ian Rogers
>10 dudes per sampan max lol? >eighteen champans, which are like skiffs. Don't be disingenuous,the author clearly referenced skiffs to show how small these sampans were.
So the Japanese pirates had anywhere from 144-180 men during that particular engagement.
