Early Samurai (III/54)

This is a list which has produced a lot of debate but less in the way of generally accepted proposals.

Dates

See Pre-Samurai Japanese, list III/7D, for a suggestion to change the start-date for the Early Samurai from AD 900 to 1020, and for discussion of 10th-century armies.

Bushi and supporting foot-soldiers

Prevalent academic opinion is that mounted bushi fought in mixed units with supporting foot-soldiers, each horseman bringing, on average, two retainers. DBMM proposes to represent this by double-basing samurai cavalry with Auxilia (I) retainers. (In DBM, the foot-soldiers would presumably have to be Psiloi (I) or (S) in order to provide support.) There is not universal agreement, however, that this double-basing should be compulsory.

Bushi on foot

The current list allows mounted samurai to dismount at any time as Bows (Superior). Horseless bushi are also included as Bows (Superior) or Blades (Fast). Objections to this include:

- There is no reason to believe that horsemen in this period ever dismounted to fight in the open. Therefore, they should not be allowed to dismount freely.

- If and when bushi did dismount (which they certainly did to fight in boats or, generally, to attack or defend fortifications - although there are even instances of them occasionally remaining mounted for this purpose) some believe that Bows (Superior) is too good a classification and Bows (Ordinary) would be more accurate. There is not universal agreement on this point.

- It is not clear that "dismounted bushi" as a class distinct from and superior to "retainer foot-soldiers" actually existed at this period.

Warrior Monks

Author: Mat "Chosroes"

Synopsis: Reclassify Warrior Monks

Proposal:

Remove:

Warrior Monks, mostly with Naginata Irr Bd (F) * 8-16

Replace with:

Skilled Warrior monks, mostly with Naginata Irr Bd (F) 0-4

Replace monk Bd (F) with monk archers, Irr Bw (O) or (S) 0-1

Other warrior monks, Irr Ax (I) * 8-12

Justification:

George Sansom’s A History of Japan to 1334 states that skilled fighting monks were a distinct minority ("a few") and the bulk of the fighting monks were "rabble". It appears the great monasteries intimidated the regency spiritually and politically, but not necessarily militarily as is shown by the ease the samurai forces had riding down the monks forces when they were finally forced to fight.

Similarly, Mikael S Adolphson, in The Gates of Power: Monks, Courtiers, and Warriors in Premodern Japan (2000) also argues that "The vast majority of monks and service people were poorly armed and had very little success against government warriors ... the images offered in the war tales and other fourteenth century sources were produced to convey a picture that exaggerated the military power of the clergy and had as its goal the discrediting of the established Buddhist church". The temples' occasional involvement in Japan's open civil wars - such as when monks of Onjoji joined Prince Mochihito and Minamoto Yorimasa at the first battle of Uji in 1180 - receive less attention, but the same caveat seems to apply. In contrast, Adolphson suggests that the temples' military force was probably more effective in the 14th-century conflicts in which they were involved - "A tremendous change had occurred from the late Heian era, when warrior bands serving the Imperial court consistently bested religious forces. In the fourteenth century temples commanded forces comparable to those of the most accomplished warriors leaders ... that by themselves could challenge most armies".

Making the rabble monks Ax(I) avoids the scale problem that making them Hordes might cause (that is, in the absolute numbers of monks allowed), plus the other 'followers' are already Ax(I) and Ax(I) is pretty 'rabbley' I think.

While the characteristic weapon of the monks was the naginata, some are illustrated as archers. They should probably be classed the same as bushi on foot, whether that is (O) or (S).

It can be argued that the monks are too numerous in this list. While one abbot is reputed to have brought 7000 monks to the capital, when angered, such "armed demonstrations" weren't really military expeditions, and rarely if ever met serious fighting. Not all those 7000 were necessarily armed monks, and the numbers encountered when they do fight battles tend to be much smaller. However, deciding the numbers of the monk contingent really needs to await determination of the scale of the list as a whole, so at the moment this proposal leaves overall element numbers unchanged.