5 Ergebnisse.

In 1543 three Portuguese merchants entered a turbulent Japan, bringing with them the first firearms the Japanese had ever seen: simple matchlock muskets called arquebuses. They proved a decisive addition to the Japanese armoury, as for centuries the samurai had fought only with bow, sword and spear. In 1575, during the Battle of Nagashino, one of the greatest original thinkers in the history of samurai, Oda Nobunaga, arranged his arquebusiers ...

A brilliant but little-known operation, the Shimazu clan raid on the independent kingdom of Rykkyu (modern Okinawa) in 1609 is one of the most extraordinary episodes in samurai history and the culmination of centuries of rivalry between the two powers. The defeat of the Shimazu at Sekigahara in 1600, and their need to win favor with the new ShMgun, led them to hatch an audacious plot to attack the islands on the ShMgun's behalf and bring back ...

The two attempts by Khubilai Khan, the Mongol Emperor of China, to invade Japan in 1274 and 1281 represent unique events in the history of both countries. It pitted the samurai of Japan against the fierce warriors of the steppes who had conquered half the known world.The Mongol conquest of Korea left them with a considerable quantity of maritime resources, which enabled them to thin seriously for the first time about crossing the Tsushima stra...

Each great samurai warlord, or daimyo, had a division of troops known as the Hatamoto, 'those who stand under the flag'. Such troops were naturally distinguished by dazzling apparel and heraldry, with banners both carried and attached to the back of the armour. This title details them with an array of colour artwork.

By 1400 the long running conflict between the Order of Teutonic Knights and Poland and Lithuania was coming to a head, partly as a result of the Order’s meddling in the internal politics of its neighbours. In June 1410 King Wladislaw Jagiello of Poland invaded the Order’s territory with a powerful allied army including all the enemies of the Teutonic Knights – Poles, Lithuanians, Russians, Bohemians, Hungarians, Tartars and Cossacks. This book...