MEDIEVAL WARFARE: ASIA

S
FIGHTING FOR THE PHILIPPINES IN THE 16TH CENTURY panish colonists had arrived in
the Philippines for the first time

THE KING OF SPAIN’S SAMURAI

in 1564. They had been eager to
establish a presence in the gen-
eral area of Southeast Asia, but
because the fabled and much-
coveted Spice Islands had already
Separated by the entire known world and totally ignorant of each fallen under Portuguese control the
other’s existence, the medieval European knights and the Japanese Spanish settled for the Philippines as
samurai lived similar lives that were based on codes of honour. an alternative, making Manila their
colonial capital in 1570. A shortage
They also demonstrated an equivalent tenacity when it came to
of food and attacks by natives made
fighting, and in 1574 two contemporary examples of these world- life hard, but the Spanish soon had
divided warriors clashed for the first time. The incident happened to put up with attacks from Japanese
in the Philippines, where Spanish colonial troops came under attack pirates as well. These savage raiders
were renegades from their own coun-
from Japanese pirates. It was the beginning of a local relationship
try who were nevertheless steeped in
between the two warrior types that would last for over a century Japan’s samurai tradition.
and would provide the first ever written accounts to reach Europe Spain’s great rival Portugal had
of the fighting techniques and skills of Japan’s samurai warriors. been established in Japan since 1543.
A combination of trade and mission-
ary work had resulted in cordial rela-
By Stephen Turnbull tions with their hosts, and whereas the
Portuguese had seen for themselves
and on the the ferocity of the samurai when di-
The Boxer Codex (shown here
pages) was crea ted arou nd the rected against their own kind, there
following
cont ains illust rations of eth- are no records of any hostile collisions
year 1590 and
in the Philippin es at the time of between Portugal and Japan. The ex-
nic groups
l cont act with the Span iard s. In
their initia perience would be very different over
es off the
this image, a Spanish vessel arriv
shore of one of the Lad rone Islands, and n
by nativ es with trad e goods.
is greated
© Indiana University

46 Medieval Warfare VIII-5

in the Philippines, where the first re-
corded pirate raid against a Spanish
settlement was launched in November
1574. The second-in-command to Lin
Feng, the Chinese leader of the gang,
was a Japanese pirate referred to as
Sioco. This man, the first Japanese war-
rior to be noted in the Spanish sources,
was killed during the attack. Writing in
July 1576 about Lin Feng’s band, the
governor of the Philippines noted that
Lin Feng’s best men were natives of
Japan. This is the first ever reference
in a European language to any Japa-
nese prowess at warfare, and over the
next few years detailed descriptions
would follow concerning Japanese
tactics, along with additional testimo-
nies to their sense of honour. There is
also mention of the famous Japanese
sword and frequent acknowledgement
of the samurai’s bravery and reckless-
ness, which represented the creation
of an image of the fierce Japanese that
would last for centuries. In a letter of
16 June 1582 to the king
of Spain, the governor of
the Philippines described
them as “the most warlike people in
this part of the world”. He noted also
that they used defensive iron armour
for the body, and had artillery and
many lances and arquebuses. Their
possession of firearms caused the
Spanish some discomfort, because the
weapons had originally been supplied
to Japan by the Portuguese, “who have
displayed that trait to the injury of their
own souls,” an obvious expression of
disgust at their rivals.
Fortunately for the Spanish colo-
nists, ruthless pirates were not the only
Japanese citizens whom they would
encounter in the Philippines, because
from 1585 onwards there are referenc-
es to the existence of a friendly Japa-
nese enclave in Manila called Dilao.
Its first inhabitants were merchant trad-
ers, but Dilao would also provide a ref-
uge for Japanese Christians fleeing per-
secution in their own country. Some
of these refugees were of the samurai
class, who proved eager to act as mer-
cenaries for the Spanish against native
uprisings. Their forced separation from
their native land is confirmed by the
lack of reference material to them in Ja-
pan itself. Instead, records about them
derive entirely from accounts kept by
their foreign employers, who included
the kings of Arakan, Siam, and Cam-
bodia, and the Portuguese, the Dutch,
and the Spanish. Their service was val-
ued by all, although a shift may be dis-
cerned in the attitude of their European
employers, which began with enthusi-
asm and deteriorated into suspicion
that the Japanese expatriates might
one day turn against them. By contrast,
this attitude was totally absent from the
Southeast Asian kingdoms, where the
Japanese enjoyed long-term employ-
ment as trusted palace guards.
“A very spirited
and courageous assault”
Like the independent pirates, the Japa-
nese mercenaries were good fighters,
although “too much given to rashness
in war” according to one Spanish com-
mentator. Yet recklessness can have its
place, and in a letter of 1587 to Philip II,
the governor of the Philippines praised
this attitude and compared it favourably
to the cowardly spirit shown by less-
favoured races. “The Japanese are an
Medieval Warfare VIII-5
47

energetic race, skilled in the use of our
weapons,” he wrote. “All the other na-
tions lack that spirit, and are cowardly,
dastardly, and abject.” Later in the same
letter, in a specific reference to Japa-
nese pirate attacks on China, he adds
that the Japanese are indeed “a warlike
race, feared among all the natives, and
most by the Chinese, who tremble at
their very name, because of the many
damages they have inflicted.”
Similar sentiments were still being
expressed twenty years later by Anto-
nio de Morga, who had been in Ma-
nila in 1595 and described how “they
carry their catans [katana: the Japanese
sword], large and small, in the belt.
They have scant beards, and are a race
of noble bearing and endeavour. They
employ many ceremonies and courte-
sies, and attach much importance to
honour and social standing.” The qual-
ity of their swords was also noted by
Diego de Artieda in 1573:
These people manufacture very
good cutlasses, which they call
48 Medieval Warfare VIII-5
A 16th-century Japanese cou-
n ple residing in the Philippines.
leques [tachi]. These have
single or double hilts, are
very sharp, and are curved
like Turkish cutlasses. On
the side without any edge,
they are about half as
thick as the finger, but the
edge is very sharp.
Diego de Artieda then added
some detailed descriptions of
Japanese tactics on land. His
account is of a battle in 1581
against pirates where their
preferred technique was a
fierce and reckless charge
with swords in hand. This
Japanese ‘banzai charge’
was a tactic designed to
terrify and disorder an
enemy, and the Spanish
account also records what ap-
peared to be the only means of
resistance to it. This was to fire vol-
leys of bullets and cannonballs at the
oncoming waves of men from within
the protection of fortifications. One
other eye-witness to the same action
was Fray Diego de Aduarte, one of
the leading Dominicans in the Philip-
pines, who wrote:
Although they perceived that the
Spaniards had detected them,
they made a very spirited and cou-
rageous assault, but were beaten
back with even greater courage
once, twice, and three times. After
a short rest, they attacked again
with wonderful spirit, though the
arquebuses and muskets brought
many to the ground. Finally, the
whole force of Japanese attacked
our fort on the side where the
cannon were, without knowing
what awaited them there. The
cannon were filled to the muzzle
with ammunition, and were fired
so seasonably that they did great
execution among the Japanese.
A southeast Asian warrior wearing
Japanese armour and weapons.
Those who were left alive, seeing
what had happened, retreated,
leaving their camp full of dead
and mangled men.
A very similar encounter happened one
year later and appears in the anonymous
Relation of the Philipina Islands:
In the month of March of the year
1582, Captain Juan Pablo de Car-
rion went to colonise that prov-
ince, and since then many more
people than before live there.
When he reached that place he
found a fleet of Japanese pirates
who desired to settle there and
had taken possession of the river.
Passing through their midst with-
out receiving any harm, he went
up higher on the river and with
the greatest haste made a sort
of fort from an old galley that he
had, in which he mounted his ar-
tillery as well as possible…
When the Japanese found that
nothing would be given them,
more than six hundred men came
one morning at dawn to attack the
fort, armed with excellent muskets
and weapons. Our men numbered
about eighty but they were defend-
ed by their small fort of
old stakes. A
great num-
ber of the
Japanese
were killed
while not more than one of
our men was killed, and it is even
said that he was killed by acci-
dent by those who were inside
the fort. When the Japanese saw
how evilly the day was going for
them and tasted of the skill of
the Spaniards, they determined
to retreat, and leave not only
the fort, but also our men and
return to their country.
n

A defence against pikes
Another death-defying Japanese tactic
noted personally by Diego de Adu-
arte was one that the Japanese pirates
learned to employ against Spanish
pikemen. It was a technique never en-
countered in Europe or South America
whereby the recipient of a pike-thrust
ignored the wound it had inflicted and
then used that same pike to his own
advantage. This was done by the Japa-
nese warrior seizing the pike that had
cut or even impaled him and using it
to drag the pikeman off his feet. The
man could then be finished off with a
sword stroke, but once again the colo-
nists developed a counter to an unfa-
miliar tactic and tried it out during an
attack on a pirate ship in 1581:
Since they had learned by ex-
perience that Japanese who are
wounded by pikes grasp hold of
the pikes in order to kill those
who have wounded them, the
captain had the pikes greased on
the upper half, in order that our
men might be able to draw them
from the bodies
and the hands
of the Japanese,
if the latter should pull
by the pikes; and this device was
of great use in the conflict
which ensued.
Diego de Aduarte also re-
fers to the employment
of the technique in 1598,
but this time he is describ-
ing its use by Japanese mer-
cenaries fighting hostile Filipi-
no natives on the Spaniards’
behalf. The ship on
which Aduarte was
travelling was
wrecked on a
remote island.
On reaching shore the Spanish
hastily built a fort as a protec-
A warrior with a Japanese sword and a
hook (reconstructed) or pike
n
tion against the hostile natives, but
“on the third day they broke the
peace by killing one of our Japanese,
and badly wounding another who
had come in our company.” This
man was a Japa-
nese merce-
nary and used
the technique of
pike-pulling against these enemies of
Spain who had not learned the coun-
ter-technique of greasing the shafts
of their spears:
He came back with his arm
pierced, and with a wound a
span long above the pit of his
stomach, but not entering it; but
he was very well satisfied be-
cause, by throwing himself for-
ward by the pike, he had killed
the Indian who had wounded
him – so proud is that race.
Japanese mercenaries like him con- sive operation against another coun-
tinued to serve the Spanish in the try. This was the initially successful
Philippines for the next half century, invasion of Cambodia, an opera-
and even featured in the plans for the tion grandly claimed to be a victory
most grandiose and ridiculous pro- whereby “twenty-two Spaniards and
ject in the entire history of the Span- as many Japanese became masters
ish colonial empire: the Spanish con- of the kingdom”. The Cambodians
quest of China. The invading army eventually drove the invaders away,
would have included 6,000 Japanese and from that time on Japanese sam-
samurai. Such a number could not
urai served the Spanish only within
be raised from the Philippines alone
the Philippines. It proved, nonethe-
or even from cooperative pirates, so
less, to be a very successful relation-
the plan envisaged, for the first time,
ship, and in 1650 the Jesuit Baltasar
the recruitment of mercenaries from
Gracián looked back on their years
within Japan itself. The Spanish knew
of service and described the King of
that the Portuguese missionaries en-
Spain’s samurai mercenaries as “the
joyed a close relationship with the
Japanese Christian lords and envis- Spaniards of the East”. No greater
aged the latter acting as recruiting compliment could have been paid by
sergeants. The embarrassment that a man from Aragon! MW
the request would have caused to
the peaceful Portuguese mission in Stephen Turnbull is a leading schol-
Japan was one reason why the cra- ar in Japan’s military and religious
zy scheme was quietly abandoned, history. He has published over 77
but in 1596 the Spanish finally used books, the latest of which is Ninja:
Japanese mercenaries in an aggres- Unmasking the Myth.
Medieval Warfare VIII-5
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