How would you subjugate a people?
How did the Japanese screw it up?
That’s what we’ll explore in today’s episode of As the Japanese State Turns.
So as we’ve established in previous videos, to the north beyond the wall lived the Emishi,
people who the Japanese state called barbarians.
At first the Japanese were okay with slowly building outposts and stockades in Emishi
territory, a slow conquering by real estate.
But in the year 774, that nonviolent policy changed.
The Emishi had ramped up their raiding game against Japanese settlements.
The growing number of settlements made it harder for the Emishi to ignore, and easier
for them to take up the bow and arrow.
The Japanese court decided it was time to show these barbarians who was boss.
In 774, the government banned the Emishi from appearing at court and even banned Emishi
immigrants who were already living in Japan from appearing at court.
Later that year, the Japanese declared war and prepared to send an army north.
For thirty-something years, 774 to 811, the court dispatched at least 10 armies to subjugate
the Emishi.
At first, the Emishi did pretty well.
Two days after the war declaration, Emishi troops attacked a stockade in Mutsu Province,
forcing the Japanese defenders and civilians there to surrender.
They burned bridges and blocked roads that led to the stockade.
The court mustered troops from 8 provinces and sent them to Mutsu.
The next year, in 775, Emishi uprisings erupted in Dewa Province next door.
The war was on, you guys.
The Japanese court didn’t really understand what they were in for.
So the Japanese court thought that their superior technology and resources would make quick
work of the barbarians.
They were wrong.
Here’s a taste of what they were dealing with.
In 780, some Emishi troops decided to kick off the new year with a torching of some Japanese
homes.
The court responded by sending 3000 warriors and creating a new stockade in the area, a
base of operations.
The base actually contained some allied Emishi warriors, because there were Emishi who were
on the side of the Japanese.
Unfortunately, the Emishi warriors in the base decided to switch sides.
They saw that an important government official and the governor of Mutsu Province were nearby,
and they thought “Oh that’s nice” and killed both of them.
They took over the new stockade, then marched over to Taga Stockade, which was the seat
of power in the frontier and it was the headquarters of the subjugation effort.
They somehow burned the place and kicked the defenders out.
The victory seemed to light a fire in the Emishi community and that year saw countless
Emishi attacks.
The Imperial army couldn’t contain them all, and the court had to recall their troops.
It was the year 781.
The war was in full swing and the Japanese court was not racking up victories.
Miki: But why were the Japanese doing so badly? Linfamy: Aaah! Oh.
You mean why didn’t the stronger Imperial forces just mow down the Emishi?
Well, let’s take a look at the armies of both sides.
At this time, Japan did not have a permanent standing army of trained soldiers.
Normally, most of the Imperial troops were drafted from peasants who were farmers for
most of the year.
Male peasants were required to serve as soldiers about 35 days a year.
But for special campaigns like these Emishi wars, the government had to gather up large
armies and assign officers to them.
The soldiers were mostly infantry with little training.
Remember they were farmers.
They would go fight in these military campaigns, and when the campaigns ended, the army would
be disbanded and they would go back to their farms.
The Japanese military consisted of mostly foot soldiers and archers.
The archers stood behind standing shields, the foot soldiers had spears.
They also sprinkled in some horse archers.
That’s archers on horseback, the horses weren’t archers.
They also had this cool large mounted crossbow type weapon called oyumi.
Yumi means bow, so oyumi means great bow.
What sucks is we don’t know what it looks like, but apparently it was this big crossbow
artillery vehicle that could loose a bunch of arrows at once, which sounds terrifying.
The Emishi forces were the total opposite.
They had tiny numbers.
They fought in groups of only a few hundred, compared to the Japanese’s thousands, and
they only used mounted archers.
They remind me of the Mongols.
Their horse archers will destroy your ass like Alcatraz.
One text wrote, “Horse-and-bow warfare is learned from birth by the barbarians; ten
of our subjects cannot equal one of them.”
So you may think, Wow a ten-to-one advantage, that’s pretty good.
Until you learn that the Japanese armies had more than 10 times the numbers of the Emishi.
On paper, the Japanese should have demolished the Emishi.
Sure the Emishi were mobile on horseback.
And a common tactic for horse archers would be to use your speed to flank and encircle
the enemy.
But remember, the Japanese also had mounted archers, so they could block the Emishi flanking
maneuvers.
In a head-on battle, archers on foot actually did better than mounted archers.
Foot archers were more accurate and fired arrows faster.
They could also hide behind cover and shields.
Couple that with their enormous numbers, the Japanese could pretty much mow down the Emishi
in a direct attack.
But that’s the problem, isn’t it?
Like any group fighting against overwhelming numbers, the Emishi engaged in guerilla warfare.
They didn’t do Leeroy Jenkins type direct attacks, it was all about hit-and-run tactics.
Cutting supply lines, attacking where the enemy was weak, then fading into the mountains.
Small units of horse archers were perfect for this.
The Japanese armies also had their own internal problems to deal with.
Not maintaining a standing army meant the court had resources to raise large armies
when needed, but it also meant these armies had trouble with long drawn-out wars.
Their army sizes could go up to tens of thousands.
It was hard to manage so many poorly trained soldiers.
Also larger armies meant less farmers growing the food to feed the troops.
Now don’t think this meant the Emishi were winning the war.
They weren’t.
They were resisting.
They couldn’t actually push the Japanese out of their lands.
In fact, the Japanese kept on expanding into their territory.
Both sides were frustrated.
So we’re in the midst of the subjugation wars here.
Let’s talk about how the wars ended in a later video.
Alright today’s quiz question is this.
What did Okuninushi’s wife, Suseri-hime give him to allow him to survive sleeping
with snakes?
In 24 hours I’ll randomly choose a winner from the people who answered correctly and
you’ll get to win one of these babies.
Good luck!
Congrats to the previous winner Jo Luffman!
Want more Emishi videos?
There’s a playlist here about them.
Okay I wanna thank our new emperor Sage Bentley.
You’re awesome.
And thank you to the new patrons this week, Kristine Trias, Jay, Darvell, and Lillian
Moon that’s a lovely name.
Alright, much love you guys and spread the knowledge!