Christ's Samurai_The True Story of the Shimabara Rebellion by Jonathan Clements

Author:Jonathan Clements [Clements, Jonathan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History
ISBN: 9781472136718
Google: gjE5DwAAQBAJ
Amazon: B012E3LPM2
Goodreads: 38507344
Publisher: Robinson
Published: 2016-04-07T00:00:00+00:00

Among them were four or five hundred bowsmen able to hit even the eye of a needle, and some eight hundred musketeers that would not miss a boar or a hare on the run, nor even a bird in flight. On earthen parapets they set up catapults to hurl stones at the approaching enemy. Even the women had their tasks apportioned to them: they were to prepare glowing hot sand and with great ladles cast it upon the attackers, and also to boil water seething hot and pour it upon them.15

At a longer range, the archers picked off some of the Nabeshima soldiers who were simply waiting to get on the path. Before long, with several officers down, the Nabeshima attack turned into a rout. The soldiers turned back with such speed that they trampled on some of their comrades in their haste to get back down the path and undercover. However, the musket salvos from the rebel defenders continued all the time.

Meanwhile, 5,000 men of the Tachibana regiment had sneaked into position in complete silence, with a front line of shield-bearers ready to ward off any arrows. But Lord Tachibana’s sneak attack lasted for only a few seconds, before a great number of his soldiers, hearing the roaring attack of the Nabeshima group, could not resist yelling back a battle-cry of their own. If the rebels had not already seen the Tachibana regiment sneaking through the dawn light, they were well and truly aware of it by the time it reached the walls, and repelled it with similar success. The battle lasted a couple of hours, before the samurai disengaged, leaving behind more than 400 of their own dead.

Tachibana’s losses were not as great as Nabeshima’s, but still immensely discomforting. In the shambles that ensued, the government casualties were in the high three figures, while the rebels do not appear to have suffered at all. ‘The assailants,’ commented one chronicler without irony, ‘now appeared to be discouraged by their failure, and for some time continued to observe the castle from a distance.’16

The commanders were seething, particularly Tachibana, who had been seen at the front of his troops, screaming at them to get a move on while instead they scuttled past him in an ignominious retreat. Meanwhile, the rebels maintained a constant vigil against further attacks. ‘At night,’ recorded the Kirishitan Monogatari, ‘those in the castle lit many torches and bonfires, so that they could even discover an ant creeping low on the ground. And therefore those who tried to approach the castle merely invited injury upon themselves, by day or by night.’17

For three days, the samurai sulked in their tents, until the rebels added insult to injury by offering to surrender. The communication came in the form of a yabumi – an ‘arrow-letter’ – which was shot out of Hara Castle into the government camp on 6 February. It was addressed specifically to Shigemasa:

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.