Well, since the entertainment peeves threads are doing so well, I thought I'd start one for historical mis-conceptions I sometimes hear even historians repeat. Let me start with one that's been mildly irking me for years:
"Samurai didn't have guns"
This one pops up whenever there's the mandatory "samurai vs knight" video, it's propagated in "The Last Samurai" movie about the Satsuma rebellion in the late 19'th century, and much to my surprise even Sabaton has a "the sword face the gun" line about the same rebellion. And again, sometimes I hear even historians repeat it.
Actually let's make some things clear.
First of all, and my even bigger peeve: the term Samurai isn't historical for anything before the 16'th century. In fact, if you called a warrior a "samurai" before Oda Nobunaga started that trend, he'd cut you where you stand for insulting his honour. Because it basically means "servant", kinda like in Europe the "knecht" in "landesknecht."
Guess who also was one of the first adopter of guns en masse? Yeah, the same Oda Nobunaga.
And they've been used in Japan ever since. In fact, masses of arquebusiers (mostly Ashigaru conscripts commanded by Samurai officers) were the whole thing about the invasion of Korea. By the time of the Satsuma Rebellion -- i.e., the time of The Last Samurai -- it's like three centuries too late for guns to be anything new for any samurai.
"Samurai didn't have guns"
This one pops up whenever there's the mandatory "samurai vs knight" video, it's propagated in "The Last Samurai" movie about the Satsuma rebellion in the late 19'th century, and much to my surprise even Sabaton has a "the sword face the gun" line about the same rebellion. And again, sometimes I hear even historians repeat it.
Actually let's make some things clear.
First of all, and my even bigger peeve: the term Samurai isn't historical for anything before the 16'th century. In fact, if you called a warrior a "samurai" before Oda Nobunaga started that trend, he'd cut you where you stand for insulting his honour. Because it basically means "servant", kinda like in Europe the "knecht" in "landesknecht."
Guess who also was one of the first adopter of guns en masse? Yeah, the same Oda Nobunaga.
And they've been used in Japan ever since. In fact, masses of arquebusiers (mostly Ashigaru conscripts commanded by Samurai officers) were the whole thing about the invasion of Korea. By the time of the Satsuma Rebellion -- i.e., the time of The Last Samurai -- it's like three centuries too late for guns to be anything new for any samurai.
via International Skeptics Forum https://ift.tt/QkhNl6v
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