Do the Japanese have the greatest "warrior culture" in history?

>Every spring the Aztecs used to organize "gladiatorial" combats between their highest military ranks and the enemy elite warriors and commanders who were captured in battle. As part of the festival, nobles from all Mesoamerica were invited to witness these combats.
>Nevertheless, only the Aztec warrior fought with an edged weapon and his movement wasn't limited by being attached to the sacrificial stone. The combat was over when the Aztec warrior was unconcious or when he managed to make his foe bleed enough to keep him from moving. Usually the first combatant for the captured warrior would be his captor and if the captured warrior was victorious he would face several other contenders. According to Bernardino de Sahagún, the number of Aztec warriors increased with each victory and there was up to four at the same time.
>A famous Tlaxcaltec warrior, Tlahuicole, prefered to die in gladiatorial combat than return to his country as a spared man. He finally met his end at the sacrificial stone after killing 8 warriors and defeating 20 more.

>Flower wars differed from typical wars in a number of important aspects. While engaging in a flower war, competing armies would meet on a "preset date at a preselected place.”[5] These places became sacred sites and were called cuauhtlalli or yaotlalli.[2] Combatants signaled the start of war by burning a large "pyre of paper and incense" between the armies.[2] Actual battle tactics also differed from typical warfare.[6] In typical warfare, the Aztecs used atlatl darts, stones, and other ranged weapons to weaken enemy forces from afar.[6] However, in flower wars, the Aztecs neglected to use ranged weapons and instead used weapons such as the macuahuitl[7] that required skill and close proximity to the enemy.[6] The use of these kinds of weapons allowed the Aztecs to display their individual combat ability, which was an important part of the flower war.[6]

>Flower wars involved fewer soldiers than typical Aztec wars did.[2] A larger proportion of the soldiers would be drawn from nobility than during a typical war.[8] These characteristics allowed the Aztecs to engage in flower wars during any time of the year.[8] In contrast, the Aztecs could fight larger wars of conquest only from late autumn to early spring, because Aztec citizens were needed for farming purposes during the rest of the year.[8] Additionally, flower wars differed from typical wars in that there were equal numbers of soldiers on each side of the battle; this was also related to the Aztecs wanting to show off their military prowess.[9]

>At birth, an Aztec boy would receive two symbols. A shield would be placed in his left hand, and an arrow would be placed in his right. After a short ceremony the newly born boy's umbilical cord, shield, and arrow would be taken to a battlefield to be buried by a renowned warrior.

>The Aztec Triple Alliance, which ruled from 1428 to 1521 in central Mexico, is considered to be the first state to implement a system of universal compulsory education.[4][5]

>The children of workers received vocational training in the more relaxed telpochcalli, the “houses of youth” established in every district. The teachers were professionals, but priests played a part. From these institutions, children could go home frequently. Yet they, like those in the calmécac, received ample instruction in morality and natural history through homilies which they often learned by heart, and of which some survive. “Almost all,” wrote a good observer in the 1560s, “know the names of all the birds, animals, trees and herbs, knowing too as many as a thousand varieties of the latter, and what they are good for.”39 A strong work ethic was inculcated: and children were told that they had to be honest, diligent and resourceful. All the same, preparation for combat was the dominating consideration where boys were concerned: above all, single combat with a matched enemy.

Most people in Japanese society would be happy peacefully farming rice and eating pickled radishes; drinking sake during the harvest and perchance enjoying festivals.

I’m not sure what’s with the infatuation with Japanese military history, but they’ve had comparably similiar times of strife to their neighbors on the continents. And yes, that includes the formation of the professional fighting elites.

>Sandoval was appointed to the command of the third division, consisting of twenty-four horse, fourteen crossbow-men and musketeers, and one hundred and fifty foot armed with shields and swords. To this division were added 8000 Indians from the townships of Chalco, Huexotzinco, and other places in alliance with us. (...) They had driven one of our brigantines between the stakes, killed two of the men, and wounded all the rest. (...) the Mexicans had already fastened many ropes to her, and were trying to tow her off into the town behind their canoes. Sandoval's encouraging words were not lost upon us, and we fought with such determination that at length we rescued the vessel.
(...)
>when all in a moment the large drum of Huitzilopochtli again resounded from the summit of the temple, accompanied by all the hellish music of shell trumpets, horns, and other instruments. The sound was truly dismal and terrifying, but still more agonizing was all this to us when we looked up and beheld how the Mexicans were mercilessly sacrificing to their idols our unfortunate companions (...) On that terrible day the loss of the three divisions amounted to sixty men and seven horses.

Bernal Díaz del Castillo. True history of the Conquest of New Spain, Chapters CL, CLII

Not the same user who is making paragraphs, but Aztecs really were a great warrior society.
Shame they didn't unite all Central American/Mexican tribes together.

But personally i'd say the Sioux were the best warrior tribe.

>Spartans, anyone who doesn't kill infants for not being perfect is inferior.
isn't that just a meme Athenians made up?

>Invade Civilized neighbours when they're either into bloody civil wars or fighting in many other fronts
>Still get BTFO 9 times out of 10 resulting in the complete extermination/enslavement/displacement of your tribe
>Succeed 1 time
>MÜH TÖRK PRĮDE

Shame they faced Iberian technology without gunpowder, horses, steel weapons and not even immunity to the Old World diseases.

I'm not well informed on the Americas. What kind of warrior culture did the Sioux have, user?

t. Zhao Bing

Sioux were America's Mongols.
Just slightly less brutal

>Sioux
Stop this meme. They achieved dick aside from Little Bighorn where they had a huge numerical advantage, everywhere else they got BTFO.

I mean, the Spanish crushed enemies with all those advantages.

There's more steppe nomands than just Turds and Mongols. Europeans were originally steppe nomads too.

>what is Red Cloud's War

The Portuguese defeated many nations with similar naval technology.
Honestly, they did amazing considering they didn't even have steel arms or Old World vessels. On top of all they were trying to capture the ships and their enemies alive.

But settling down got us to the moon, not spending the next 4 millennia drinking horse cum...

>Ban Chao did nothing wrong

>Japanese Samurai
>Greatest Warrior Culture.

They can barely invade their fucking neighbors without getting BTFO.

Come on lad, the Mamelukes I can understand but the Samurai and Indian ones are just pure denial.

>The Portuguese defeated many nations with similar naval technology.

>Feudal Japan
>Similar naval technology.

>Feudal Japan
>Naval competence of any sort.

Feudal Japs were idiots on the water. Their entire naval strategy was to build taller and taller ships and close in and board.

In addition naval gunnery was so beyond them that during the Imjin War, Korean and Chinese vessels sank them with cannon.

I meant technology similar to the Spanish one.

>If not, who does?
The city-state which conquered the most fractured and difficult to subdue portion of the world, in in of the most warlike periods of human history, honorbound to the point of being suicidal about it, maintaining the fight even in the face of appalling military defeats which would have sent any other people scrambling for an armistice.

They ruled the mediterranean with an iron fist for centuries. When they were gone, people fought for an even longer period of time trying to live up to the standard that they set. To this day, people fight over who are the true successors to the Roman Empire.

>amazon.com/Roman-Honor-Bones-Carlin-Barton/dp/0520225252

Romans were borderline autistic about honor. The survivors of Cannae were forced into exile until they were allowed to redeem themselves in a suicide attack against Hannibal. Even after the central government collapsed, the military alone kept the empire going for many decades.

>But personally i'd say the Sioux were the best warrior tribe.
Elaborate pls

Spartans

British Knights; crusade and the countless times we beat the shit out of French knights, that and they weren't head-hunters like those Honshu savages.

yes, yes it is.
The Spartans weren't even a warrior culture by default, that was just propaganda to get them political leverage against the rest of Greece.

because military history is the most exciting history, in general; not just japanese

> Romans were borderline autistic about honor. The survivors of Cannae were forced into exile until they were allowed to redeem themselves in a suicide attack against Hannibal.

Where the fuck did you read that?

The survivors from Cannae were sent to garrison Sicily. They were found by Scipio Africanus almost a decade later. Scipio himself was a Cannae survivor, and recruited those men into his expeditionary force, where they served with distinction.

Aztecs (the ones from Tenochtitlan, not Aztlan) literally made up periodic full-on scale wars just for the sake of it.

for maximum lolz they used only non-lethal weapons against well armed proffesional soldiers, who were taken alive and later ritually executed, cooked, and served in a banquet. Kek

>Americans love peace
>dominate the world

>Norse love war
>Scandinavia is being colonized by literal animals

>Spartans
Sparta wasn't a wariror society doe. At their height they probabably weren't all that different from other Greek City States, a lot of their intituions at that time are attested in other Greek City States. The education, or the agoge how it can to be later know, was similar to the education attained by other Greeks in the leisure class, that is the teaching of Greek values, obidience and fitness. The big difference is that it was mandatory for the Spartans.
A lot of the more weirder things you hear about Sparta are found towards the 4th century and later into the Roman period once Sparta went from being a relevant power into being a backwater city in Greece. Indeed, the Romans turned Sparta into a sort of theme park, like Disneyworld, where the Spartans put on a show for Roman tourist and where the Spartans tried to show off how tough they imagined themselves to be.
The martial prowess of the Spartans is vastly overrated. They really weren't a military society, as far as we know their training consisted of exercise and basic formation training while on campaign.
So why were the Spartans admired and had an unbroken streak in pitched battles? A lot has to do with the propaganda built around the 300 and a big part is also that most Greek militaries consisted of amateurs. The Ancient Greeks did no train their hoplites and the Spartans did to some small degree. This gave them an edge in combat.

Towards the end of the Classical Era the other Greek city states do something the Spartans did, train their hoplites. Aristotle sums up the situation in the late 4th century BC.
>>And we know of the Lakonians(Spartans) that while they persisted by themselves in their hard exercises they surpassed all others, but now they are left behind by the rest both in gymnastic and in military contests; for they used to stand out, not because they exercised their young men like this, but only because they trained, and others did not. Aristotle, Politics 1338b

Maori, hands down

Here Aristotle noted that while the Spartans insisted that they had hard exercises and were better than others at it they came up on top. Aristotle however notes that it wasn't because they were these badass manly guys dedicated to war but rather because they were the only ones with some amount of training rather than none.

While it may be surprising to hear that the Greeks never trained their hoplites for most of the Classical Era it's attested in the sources.

Xenophon writes
>“I tell you, just because the state does not publicly train for war, you must not cultivate it any less yourself". Xenophon, Mem . 3.12.5

The Greeks also mocked people who practiced with their weapons. As Plato writes,

>I have come across more than a few of these [hoplomachia instructors] in actual operations, and I can see their quality. Indeed, we can estimate it offhand: for, as though it were of set purpose, not one of these experts in arms has ever yet distinguished himself in war. And yet in all the other arts, the men who have made a name are to be found among those who have specially pursued one or other of them; while these persons, apparently, stand out from the rest in this particularly hapless fate of their profession. (...)
Hence, as I said at the beginning, whether [hoplomachia] be an accomplishment, and one of but little use, or not an accomplishment, but only supposed and pretended to be such, it is not worth the trouble of learning it. For indeed I hold that if a man who was a coward believed that he possessed it, his only gain would be in rashness, which would make his true nature the more conspicuous; while if he were brave, people would be on the look-out for even the slightest mistake on his part, and he would incur much grievous slander; for the pretension to such skill arouses jealousy, so that unless a man be prodigiously superior to the rest in valor he cannot by any means escape being made a laughing-stock through professing to be so skilled.
-- Plato, Laches 182e-184c

So it's like to no wonder that the Spartans were admired by the other Greeks. For the longest time they were the only once who had little training for war rather than none like the other amateurs.

Elaborate pls

Warrior cultures are for plebs. Citizen-soldier cultures are where it's at.

>>Americans love peace

They do.

they have been at war 222 years out of the 239 their country have existed and their national anthem is about some dude gushing over shit blowing up.

peasant-soldiers > citizen-soldiers
as proven in Vietnam

It's rare to see serious sourced debate her. Very appreciated user.

Americans love peace. Its not their fault other people start shit.

...

genocidaires fear the tutsi warrior

No problem. I think in general most people buy into the "theme park" version of Sparta. That is the image that the Spartans wanted to give off themselves. A lot of their myth is built upon the action of the 300 and it's probably the most successful propaganda campaign in all of history.

To put it into perspective, see this post:
The practice of infanticide is brought up by Plutarch in the 2nd century AD. Way past the prime of Sparta. Both the Greeks and the Romans were fascinated by old Sparta in its prime and the Spartans were all too happy feeding into that myth to remain relevant and also bring in extra tourism.

In contrast Xenophon mentions that having lots of children is the duty of all Spartan citizens, this also including sharing wives. Xenophon writes about how the Spartans encouraged fertility and the health of their children. Nowhere does he ever write of a selection process. Indeed, it would've been counter-productive to do so at the looming threat of a shrinking citizen body.

Agesilaos II, close friend of Xenophon and king of Sparta, was a man of short stature and lame. If this selection process is true than how did this guy become King of the Spartans?

As I mentioned, recent scholarship has shifted into painting Sparta as not at all disimilar from the other Greek City States.

While sources focus mostly on the collective training of Spartan boys, we also hear that these boys were taught the finer things in life by private tutors. While sources stress Spartan austerity and aversion to luxury, there is a lot of evidence that wealthy Spartans liked to hunt, raise horses and fund chariot teams just as much as the rich in the rest of Greece. While we hear much about how Spartan society was shaped by their fear and surpression of the helots, we also know that slave classes similar to helots existed in states all over the Greek world. Like other Greeks, Spartans spent much of their spare time drinking, dancing and singing songs; like other Greeks, they vied with each other for status and influence. The notion of Sparta as the perpetual "other" is clearly the result of unbalanced reporting.

All of the famous Spartan social institutions are also attested elsewhere, with the sole exception of the dual kingship; indeed, Sparta seems to follow along with changing trends regarding these institutions throughout the Greek world. Helot-like classes existed elsewhere. The ideal of an all-leisure-class citizenry existed elsewhere. State-organised leisure-class education existed elsewhere. Generally, Sparta was not different but simply better at implementing things that other states tried to achieve for themselves as well. In this sense the Spartans would not have been considered odd to outsiders, but envied; they had achieved what many others (especially among the leisure class of Greek states) regarded as ideal..

Kshatriya of India defeated Alexander the Great.

>have
Wut, m8 Bushido died after ww2. The only attempt made to save it was made by a possibly gay body building writer, aka Yukio Mishima

The United States Marine has more warrior spirit in one little finger than all the other chinky dink gook shitholes have had in their entire irrelevant existence.

>is about some dude gushing over shit blowing up.
I thought it was about a dude getting blown up

The Japanese military had poor strategy and tactics. Their one redeeming feature was discipline, which was extremely high.
Besides that they were subhuman - there was no other power in WW2 whose military (I'm excluding the non-military aspects of Nazi Germany here) went to greater lengths to terrorize noncombatants, POWs, and women and children.
Their only successes were versus the Chinese, which is about as pathetic as the Italians beating the Ethiopians. There was no glory earned in beating the skeleton crews of green troops manning European colonial outposts, either.
Pretty sure even the average Japanese soldier at some point knew how hopeless and retarded the whole endeavor was - no wonder they were known for charging into enemy machine gun fire shouting "Banzai!" just to be killed.

memes.
almost every time the actual VC (not the NVA) engaged with the US military directly they got the shit kicked out of them.

defeated as in intimidated the Makedonians by having the sheer numbers rather than proving anything in battle

"Wars" with savage injuns don't really count, more like a mass eviction

If they were so great why did they get their asses kicked so hard so many times?

It's difficult to even say that a unified society has existed in Japan for more than 800 years, nevermind a military one.

This is a thread about warrior cultures, not your bestiality habit.

We honestly don't get enough credit for our solders, IMO. Smart, brave, deadly. What more could you want.

Idk about best though. I think I agree with OP on that one

Why is he wearing under armor under his martial arts vest thing.

Only after they converted to Christianity, then even worse Pr*testantism.
That said, my vote goes to Greece.

>British
great britain wasn't a thing that chivalry was already dead, killed by English archer in France.
French knights tale defined what was chivalry.

>smart
You've never spent more than 5 minutes speaking with any grunt ever.

steppe nomads were mostly assimilated into turkic/mongol peoples
some however moved south into east-iran

youtube.com/watch?v=MwNUMM4iRb0
youtube.com/watch?v=NIB6ST9nNG0
youtube.com/watch?v=ykEIbgbRAJQ
youtube.com/watch?v=PndNRMUmuBE

amerigoblin bitches are not brave nor have a "warrior spirit"

Their religion and culture praised people who died in battle, to go to heaven you needed to die in battle. Because of that they beated everybody in europe and asia at the time.

Mongols

we don't know 100% if being taken to valhalla was seen as something desirable by most people fighting and dying over and over again sounds a bit shit but it had to be done so odin had warriors at ragnarok.
freja had a nicer thing going on. more like a traditional "paradise" for non psychotic people.
>Because of that they beated everybody in europe and asia at the time.
>Veeky Forums - absolute delusions and oversimplyfications

>Snowniggas
>beated everybody in europe and asia at the time.
I see No*dic Delusional syndrome is happening again.

Sweetie....

>If I die I win

>Norse people.
Raiding feudal towns without a proper military. Truly a force to be reckoned with.

Bingo.

Fi fi fo fum, i smell the blood of a conquered one

Bump

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