K,
I read in a blackbelt magazine that kyudo was used to help defend japan against the mongol invasions of the 1200's. I looked up many many sites of the wars, and all the stories are basically the same, but not one of them mentions anything about kyudo. Im wondering if kyudo was actually in exsistence by this time, and if it played any part at all in this war?
I do know that bows and arrows played a big part in mongol tacticts at this time, but nothing about japan. Please help. Thanks.
First off, I'd be very wary of anything you read on historical MA in a mainstream periodical like Black Belt. You're more likely to get reliable info in a serious academic publication, like Journal of Asian Martial Arts.
That being said, of course archery was used by the Japanese bushi against the Mongols--but that archery wasn't particularly effective. The Japanese yumi is decidedly inferior in both range and power to the Continental Asiatic composite bow which was used by both the Mongols and their Chinese and Korean auxiliaries. This superiority of the Continental weapon remained unchanged for centuries, as evidenced by the Japanese acknowledgement of the Korean composite bow being better than their yumi, during the Imjin War of 1592-98 AD/CE.
Another indication of the essential failure of Japanese archery during the two Mongol Invasions in the 13th century is the fact that, after those wars, the bushi actually placed less emphasis on archery, and instead focused more on shock tactics with close weapons (yari, naginata, nagamaki, no-dachi, tachi, katana, etc). Missile weapons in fact took a back seat until the introduction of the Portuguese matchlock arquebus (teppo), in the 1540s.
In addition, we should keep in mind that the Japanese, like many other opponents of the Mongols, were actually hampered by a tradition of emphasis on individual combat (in this regard, the bushi were rather similar to the knights of Europe). This contrasted sharply with the massed tactics of the Mongols.
The Mongols, however, ultimately failed for a number of reasons:
1. They were not experts in amphibious warfare (unlike, say, the Vikings or Venetians).
2. The majority of the fighting men who went to Japan were not even Mongols--they were the already-mentioned Chinese and Koreans, who had only recently been conquered by the Mongols themselves. One has to wonder what their morale was like.
3. The weather manifested itself in a distinctly unpleasant fashion (the so-called Kamikaze). We can compare the Mongol experience to that of the Spanish Armada in 1588.
4. When we really hear of Japanese fighting success against the Mongols, it was in the form of nighttime raids that the bushi launched against the enemy fleet from small boats, where the samurai would board Mongol vessels and fight it out at HTH. Similar tactics were used by the Uskok pirates against both the Venetians and Ottoman Turks in the Adriatic during the 16th and 17th centuries, and by the Cossacks against the Ottoman Turks in the Black Sea in the 17th century.
Hope this helps.
Peace,
A_M_P
_________________________
And the rapier blades, being so narrow and of so small substance, and made of a very hard temper to fight in private frays... do presently break and so become unprofitable. --Sir John Smythe, 1590
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