Honour to your family, honour to your god. To give your life for the principle of honour and follow a code bound by it has long been romanticized by writers, poets, and even some historians. But one finds that even those who lived by a strict code of honour lived less than ideal lives.
Samurai: The legendary soldiers from feudal Japan who disposed of their opponents with brutal efficiency.
vs.
Knights: The iconic pious armoured horsemen from Medevil Europe who defended the Christian lands from foreign invaders at any cost.
WHO IS DEADLIEST!?
Samurai[]
| “ | [Ogami Itto] is a fucking samurai. They're mystical as shit.
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The samurai started in the Heian Period as armed supporters of local lords but swiftly became a military nobility after the Gempei War which established Minamoto no Yoritomo as the shogun (military dictator) of Japan. The samurai continued to play an important role, acting as the main fighting force of the local lords, as well as maintaining law and order. As the Japanese army began to westernize during the Meji restoration the samurai class was abolished.
Knights[]
| “ | Thou shalt be everywhere and always the champion of the Right and the Good against Injustice and Evil.
— Leon Gautier's 10th Commandment of Chivalry
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Knights were noble armoured horse and swordsmen thought first to be used by the Frankish King and Holy Roman Emperor Charlemagne. As a reward for their service, knights were often given plots of land and fiefs to work for them. During the Crusades and the popularization of Chivalry, they slowly solidified themselves as protectors of the Catholic faith. With the development of black powder and standing armies, the armoured swordsmen slowly became obsolete, though the title and some knightly orders are still around in Europe.
Rondel Dagger
Arming Sword
Longsword
Halberd
A halberd is basically a weapon that is both axe, pike, and hook into one. The axe and pike part are meant for hacking and thrusting respectively, while the hook is meant to demount horsemen. It's about 183 cm long an weighs 2.28 kg. Only the knights on foot will have the halberds.
Heavy Lance
Mace
Plate Armour
X-Factors[]
Training
Samurai training started very young, at age 3 they began basic fencing, at age 5 or 7 they would've gotten a mamorigatana, this would also be the age where they got more serious training from their fathers or other male relatives. They would be thought archery, swordsmanship, how to ride a horse, and martial arts such as judo or karate. Between the ages of 12 and 16 a samurai would first enter the battlefield.
The knights a boy was the son of a knight they would be sent to a castle and raised by a foster parent. On their 7th birthday, the lad would become a page. He would learn basic skills, hunting, and maintenance of equipment. At age 14 they would become a squire and would be thought how to ride on horseback, swordsmanship, archery, boxing, and would fight alongside a knight up until their 21st birthday when they could finally earn their knighthood.
Brutality
Despite some forms of bushido denouncing cruelty, samurai were valued loyalty to their lord (or daimyo) above everything else and it was considered dishonourable to ignore the commands of one's daimyo. This meant that they often did horrible things in their names such as when Oda Nobunaga razed the Enryaku-ji temple where he ordered his men to kill every man, woman, and child or the Japanese invasion of Korea in 1592 where thousands of Koreans were slaughtered thousands of peasants. There are even stories of samurai testing out their new blade on unsuspecting Japanese farmers.
Just like the samurai, knights followed their own code of conduct called chivalry, contrary to popular belief, however, chivalry wasn't this some kind of holy code, but whatever the knight's leader wanted it to be and at times knights would often exploit some loopholes. For example, if their lord said "don't steal from peasants", but not "don't beat up peasants" a knight would just beat up a guy if he felt like it. A good example of knights performing brutal acts would be the First Crusade, specifically, the Siege of Jerusalem where they slaughtered the Jewish and Islamic inhabitants, no matter their age, gender or occupation.
Physicality
The samurai were 1.6 m tall, and weight in on 61 kg. While the samurai did occasional strength training, they prioritized speed and agility, as they considered it important to draw first blood and swiftly end a fight. The samurai's diet existed out of rice, potatoes, radishes beans, chestnuts, nuts, tofu, and yams. They didn't eat meat as it was against Buddhist and Shinto believes.
Knights were 1.8 m tall, and weight in on 82 kg. Because they would mostly walk around in full plate armour using heavy weaponry, knights focused on building up their physical strength so they wouldn't be weighed down as much. A knight's diet usually excited out of profusion of fruits, vegetables, dried legumes, cheese, fish, and sometimes meat if it was avilible.
Notes[]
- The battle will be 12 vs. 12, each side will have 6 soldiers on horseback and 6 on foot.
- The battle will take place in a valley with a hill on each end, both groups will start off on their own hill.
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