Quote:
Originally Posted by IDonT
People have "romantic" notions (and bias) of what a knight and a samurai is like. The reality is totally differrent.
During its heyday, the Samurai were used, especially by Nabunaga, as matchlock riflemen, infantry spearmen, horse archers and heavy shock cavalry. The popular notion of the samurai, the warrior sage poet that constantly contemplated on how to kill himself, occurred after its prime.
The plated armored knight, the romanticized version, on the other hand is purely heavy shock cavalry. The reality is also different.
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Oda Nobunaga was also mid 16th Century, by which time the Europeans were a bit more advanced in their use of firearms on the battlefield, since they were the ones giving them to the Japanese in the first place. Muskets were on battlefields of Europe long before Nobunaga was even born. The Landsknechts and Spanish musket-pike squares occurred well before the Japanese 'discovered' how to fight this way.
Saying that every soldier on the battlefield had their roles done by Samurai, would be like saying that all the crossbowmen, foot soldiers, and cannon users were also Knights. Nobunaga instituted more of a modern style army, more in the manner of the Europeans at the time, without the same emphasis on social ranking as the Samurai class at all.
The actual Samurai committing seppuku was a bit more than romance. The ceremonial aspects changed over time, but it was a constant. Ritual suicide over points of honour were often taken to what Western viewers would see as ridiculous extremes in Japan. It got to the point where Samurai would write home to their family about it being regrettable that they were broke and would have to kill themselves over a lack of cash, to extort their parents. It was a very ingrained part of their warrior culture that should not be so easily discounted.