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Chad
In: Ramsbottom
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| Nem wrote: | I just can't get my head round this....
In 1543 a couple of Portugese travellers arrive in Japan with arquebuses. The Japanese are suitably impressed and commence mass production.... by the end of the century they have more guns per head than anywhere.... brilliant....they then proceed to do away with all guns until they have none.... the Europeans of course keep on developing their weaponry... |
Have all the dates suggested been verified beyond doubt?
Sakoku smells suspiciously like a 'Dark Age' (full of myth and legend) inserted to align events to the orthodox chronology.
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Grant
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| The proliferation of guns was severely controlled, leading to their near-total abandonment. |
Chad, I'm not sure you need to posit a Dark Age myth to explain why guns were outlawed. One of the first things a despotic regime often does is to ban guns for ordinary people, because it's very difficult to be truly despotic if the peasantry are armed.
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| Chad wrote: |
Have all the dates suggested been verified beyond doubt?
Sakoku smells suspiciously like a 'Dark Age' (full of myth and legend) inserted to align events to the orthodox chronology. |
Hmm good question..... I have my doubts about the Portuguese adventurers.... but it's a good story....so why not tell it....
But there are documents at the Japanese museum which might throw some light on it....
http://www.rekihaku.ac.jp/e-rekihaku/126/rekishi.html
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Chad
In: Ramsbottom
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| Grant wrote: | | The proliferation of guns was severely controlled, leading to their near-total abandonment. |
Chad, I'm not sure you need to posit a Dark Age myth to explain why guns were outlawed. One of the first things a despotic regime often does is to ban guns for ordinary people, because it's very difficult to be truly despotic if the peasantry are armed. |
But it's quite a feat to get a despotically minded regime and its enforcement apparatus to abandon firearms as well... no wonder the little buggers are described as inscrutable.
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| Grant wrote: | | Chad, I'm not sure you need to posit a Dark Age myth to explain why guns were outlawed. One of the first things a despotic regime often does is to ban guns for ordinary people, because it's very difficult to be truly despotic if the peasantry are armed. |
Why the different experience between Europe and Japan? The Japanese were technologically ahead in gun manufacture.....why stop all production ... stop the peasants having them if you wish...but create stockpiles for an army....or send out a few armed men like Pizarro to come back with gold....
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Ishmael
In: Toronto
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Never happened.
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| Ishmael wrote: | | Never happened. |
Go on... what never happened ...... ?
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Chad
In: Ramsbottom
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| Ishmael wrote: | | Never happened. |
That's what I like about Ishmael... straight to the point... why waste words?
I wish I had said that... instead of just hinting at it.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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This is called the Missing Gas Problem. Why was poison gas not used in the Second World War; why was Hanoi not nuked; etc? It seems (proof is unavailable) that for war to work as an arbiter of policy, various rules have to be attached in order that the outcome be the 'correct' one, ie go to the 'better' side. Normally, this is simply done by equating technological advance with better and then just allowing a free-for-all. Victory therefore goes to a combination of the big battalions, the most advanced technology and higher morale.
But take Vietnam. If the Yanks had nuked Hanoi, the Commies might have cried uncle but they (and the Americans and the rest of the world) would have understood that the Americans hadn't really won the war -- and presumably it would have broken out somehow else. But bombing the Vietnamese back into the Stone Age by conventional means was accepted as OK and speedily led to a Vietnamese victory.
In Feudal Japan (presumably) firearms might have resulted in the overthrow of the Feudal System, a worse outcome than any one particular victory, so back-to-samurais was agreed. The weaker side can thus sometimes get to choose the weapons eg the current War on Terror.
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| Chad wrote: |
I wish I had said that... instead of just hinting at it. |
Never mind Chad.... Have a go at this one by Michael Bosworth....
"Over fifty years before the first intrepid Portuguese caravels inspired by Prince Henry the Navigator traversed the southern tip of Africa to first enter the Indian Ocean in 1488, fleets of hundreds of immense Chinese junks sent by the Ming Emperor Zhu Di traversed from the China Sea past Sumatra to Ceylon, India, Arabia and East Africa. Seven epic Chinese naval expeditions from 1405 to 1433 explored and brought under the Chinese tributary system the vast periphery of the Indian Ocean. However, less than a century after this Chinese maritime high water mark, it was a crime to even go to sea from China in a multi-masted ship. How could an empire have such a dramatic shift in nautical policy?"
Here is the Wiki info
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zheng_He
You see the Japanese rejected guns the Chinese great ocean ships.
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Hatty
Site Admin
In: Berkshire
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| You see the Japanese rejected guns the Chinese great ocean ships. |
Do the Chinese need great ocean ships other than for setting up trading links, which purpose appears to have been admirably accomplished according to the article you posted. And it cannot have been in the interests of the Japanese to start an arms race with such a powerful neighbour. That would have been the equivalent of being the first to push the red button and Japan wouldn't have come out the victor surely.
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Grant
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I think the story of Zheng He is perfectly understandable in the light of what we understand about the Chinese. The Chinese are the most successful (1.6 billion of them!) and most intelligent (average IQ 107) race on earth. But their low levels of testerone make them less aggressive than other races. They are content to stay at home, doing as they are told and serving their leader. Even those who live abroad decide to stay in Chinese communities rather than mix with foreigners.
This is why virtually all human achievements have been made by the restless, aggressive Europeans.
It is not surprising that a Chinese emperor would decide not to bother with the barbarians outside China. In fact, it's what the Chinese leaders think now.
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Ishmael
In: Toronto
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Never happened again.
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Ishmael
In: Toronto
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| Mick Harper wrote: | | But bombing the Vietnamese back into the Stone Age by conventional means was accepted as OK and speedily led to a Vietnamese wictory. |
Except it didn't.
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Chad
In: Ramsbottom
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| Ishmael wrote: | | Never happened again. |
Wish I'd said that... again.
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